Since launching its SPROUT Awards program in 2022 to encourage emerging collaborations at the intersection of research fields, the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering has never granted more than seven awards in a standard cycle. This year, it has granted 16 – supporting a broad range of promising projects in AI, medicine, semiconductors, sustainability and more. 

The expansion of the SPROUT program (the name stands for Support for Promising Research Opportunities and Unconventional Teams) was made possible with an investment from the Duffield Launch Fund, which recently established with a portion of a the college’s naming gift from alumnus David A. Duffield ’62, MBA ’64.

SPROUT Awards are intended to support teams of investigators with demonstrated collaborative success, typically those working on projects that have received positive reviews from outside agencies but not yet been awarded funding. The support is expected to enable them to further develop their idea, with the expectation that they will submit an augmented proposal to an external agency.

In a recent survey of past SPROUT awardees, 70 percent said the support led to at least one proposal submission to an external funding agency. Of the remainder, all but one respondent indicated that they plan to submit a proposal in the future. Recipients credited SPROUTS with helping to secure both federal grants and philanthropic support.  

“SPROUT Awards have proven to be a flexible and vital mechanism in this unpredictable research funding environment,” said Lois Pollack, associate dean for research and graduate studies at Duffield Engineering. “With a proven track record of success, this program has upheld our college’s commitment to fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and research that drives meaningful change. We are thrilled to announce such a large and impressive cohort of awardees this year.”

This winning projects for the fifth cycle of standard SPROUT Awards are:

Eliminating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from semiconductor manufacturing

This work is spearheaded by Damian Helbling, professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Judy Cha, the Rick and Betty Tsai Ph.D. 1981 Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. 

In addition to enabling more awards, the new investment from the Duffield Fund created the opportunity to provide higher levels of funding to “exceptional” projects that have not received external support despite reviews that would have assured it in years past. This project received one of these “exceptional” SPROUT Awards, making it the first to ever do so – and the only one to date. 

3D Integrated Accelerator Design and Benchmarking Framework for Energy-Efficient and Carbon-Aware AI Systems

This project integrates the complementary areas of expertise of Jae-sun Seo, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Udit Gupta, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

An Integrated and Adaptable Methane‑Driven Biorefinery System for Upcycling Agricultural Waste into Bioactive Fertilizer and Simultaneous GHGs Elimination 

This project is proposed by April Gu, professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Oliver Gao, Howard Simpson 1942 Professor of Engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Systems Engineering Program; Jenny Kao-Kniffin, professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Miguel A. Pineros, adjunct associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Michael Charles, assistant professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Managing Yearly Variability in Alaskan Fisheries

The project is led by David Shmoys, the Laibe/Acheson Professor of Business Management and Leadership Studies in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, and Andrea Lodi, the Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell Tech.

Charge Transfer and Microstructure Evolution in Conductive Suspensions Under Shear 

This work is headed by Sarah Hormozi, associate professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Donald Koch, professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Programmable Functionalities of Vapor Deposited Polymer Thin Films Guided by Artificial Intelligence 

This project is spearheaded by Jingjie Yeo, assistant professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Rong Yang, the Marjorie L. Hart '50 Professor of Engineering in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Beyond DNA: Entropy-Engineered Sequence-Defined Ligands as a Scalable, Solvent-Eclectic Platform for Programmable Nanomaterial Assembly 

This project is proposed by Fernando Escobedo, the Samuel W. and M. Diane Bodman Professor in Chemical Engineering in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Christopher A. Alabi, Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

In Situ Studies of Deformation Mechanisms in Heterostructured Metals and Alloys

This work is led by Mostafa Hassani, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Andrej Singer, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Toward Programmable Nanoconfined Ion Transport for Bioinspired Information Processing

This project integrates the complementary areas of expertise of Yu Zhong, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Shuwen Yue, assistant professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; and Nicholas Abbott, the Tisch University Professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

MOCVD Synthesis of Nitrides for Quantum Information Science

This project is led by Hari Nair, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Valla Fatemi, assistant professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics.

Living Therapeutics: Engineering Synthetic Bacterial Vectors for Precision Ubiquibody Delivery in Colorectal Cancer

This work is headed by Matthew DeLisa, the William L. Lewis Professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Pengbo Zhou, professor in the Graduate School of Medical Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine; Tetsuhiro Harimoto, incoming assistant professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; and Sarah Caddy, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Endocytosis and Mechanotransduction: Uncovering a Novel Mechanism in Osteocyte Response to Mechanical Load In Vivo

This research is led by Karl Lewis, assistant professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, and Uli B. Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Identifying disease-driving mechanisms and novel therapeutic approaches for LMNA-associated dilated cardiomyopathy

This work is headed by Jan Lammerding, professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering; Iwijn De Vlaminck, professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering; and Cynthia Leifer, professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Noninvasive, time-lapse quantification of bone formation and resorption during osteoporosis treatment

The project is led by Eve Donnelly, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Emily Stein, associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Microtrench Surface Engineering for Stable Endothelialization of Mechanical Prosthetic Valves

This project is proposed by Jonathan Butcher, the Joseph Newton Pew Jr. Professor in Engineering in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering; James Antaki, Susan K. McAdam Professor of Heart Assist Technology in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering; and Joaquin Araos, associate professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Harnessing the Atmosphere as an Adaptive Optical Medium: Towards Sensitive and Specific Remote Detection of Greenhouse Gases and Trace Contaminants

The is a renewal award that continues support for a project led by Jeffrey Moses, associate professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics, and Robert DiStasio, Jr., associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Patrick Gillespie is an editorial specialist for Duffield Engineering.