April 2026

April showers bring the latest news from the Hariri Institute to your inbox.

This Month's Highlights:

Yannis Paschalidis earns AIMBE Fellowship.
SAIL wins a $400K grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
BEACON's PandemIQ Llama LLM open source code is now available.
New funding opportunities and events.

Yannis Paschalidis Inducted into 2026 AIMBE College of Fellows

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has inducted Yannis Paschalidis into its 2026 College of Fellows. This peer-elected membership honors the top two percent of medical and biological engineers whose contributions have had a transformative impact on healthcare and medicine.

From Pilot to Platform: SAIL Wins Sloan Grant to Scale AI Access

The Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIL) won a $400,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to scale PREAA, an open-source framework designed to make generative AI more secure, reproducible, and accessible across higher education.

Sharing open-source use of PandemIQ Llama LLM code

The code for PandemIQ Llama LLM used by the Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON) is now publicly available. Developed by data scientists and engineers at the Hariri Institute with input from infectious disease experts from BU's Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases (CEID), PandemIQ Llama is a domain-adapted large language model (LLM) designed specifically for pandemic intelligence applications.

Bitworthy

Shariq Mohammed (SPH) received a new NIH R03 award as PI from the National Institute on Aging for the project “Network biomarkers for early detection of cognitive impairment using digital clock drawings,” focused on improving early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
CAS Professors Alice Cronin-Golomb and Plamen Ch. Ivanov have been named AAAS Fellows.
Gianluca Stringhini (ECE) and Pujan Paudel (ECE PhD '25) received a Distinguished Paper Award at NDSS 2025 for an effective new system to identify fraudulent websites.
Junior Faculty Fellow James Chapman (ENG) published a C hemical Physics Review article discussing the challenges and future opportunities for using machine learning models to extrapolate during materials discovery.
The Washington Post quoted economist James Feigenbaum and cited his research paper to offer an optimistic perspective on the threat of AI-related job losses.
Emiliano Dall'Anese (ENG) receive the Outstanding Associate Editor recognition from IEEE Control Systems Letters for 2025.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, April 22 | 2:00 pm: Unveiling Molecular Structure, Interactions, and Synergism in Solutions with Novel Femtosecond Laser Spectroscopy. Debabrata Goswami, Physical Chemist and Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Thursday, April 23 | 2:30 pm: Adiabatic Sensitivity in Classical Chaotic Systems. Nathan Rose, Graduate Student, Boston University.

Friday, April 24 | 3:00 pm: CISE Seminar Thomas Parisini, Professor, Chair in Industrial Control, Head of Group for CAP, Imperial College London

Monday, April 27 | 12:00 pm: Meet the Funded: Building Authentic Relationships with Foundations

Wednesday, April 29 | 12:00 pm: Meet the Funder: RRF Foundation. Amy Eisenstein, RRF Senior Program Officer and Director of Research.

Wednesday April 29 | 5:30 pm: BUSPH Public Health Conversation: The Future of Public Health in the United States.

Thursday, April 30 | 12:00 pm: Find Funding: Updates to BU’s Internal Limited Submissions Process

Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow Huimin Cheng is the featured speaker for the Center for Health Data Science Seminar titled "Introduction to AI in Health," cosponsored by the SPH Center for Health Data Science, the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), AIDA, and Hariri Institute.

Hybrid Event: Monday, May 4, 2026

12-1PM Seminar; 1PM-2PM Lunch

Event details and registration found here.

Funding Opportunities

Student Opportunities

TechGeneration Residential Internship Program

Applications are open for this new MassTech program offering subsidized summer housing community for tech interns in Greater Boston.

Applications now.

Faculty Opportunities

Limited Submissions

STEM

NSF TechAccess: AI-Ready America – Round One (4/27)

Up to $3 million to establish a State/Territory Coordination Hub to expand access to AI literacy, tools, and resources.

>Apply by Monday, April 27, 2026 via InfoReady Review.

MEDICINE

Brain Research Foundation Scientific Innovations Award 2027 (4/26)

Up to $150,000 (direct costs) over 2 years for innovative science in both basic and clinical neuroscience.
>Apply by 4/26/2026 via InfoReady Review.

STEM

Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) SEEDS Program (6/1)

MRL has invited Boston University to participate in their MRL Scientific Engagement and Emerging Discovery Science (SEEDS) Program as one of a select group of seven institutions. The program will provide BU faculty investigators with funding up to $200,000 (direct and F&A) and access to MRL scientists to advance the most innovative discoveries for therapeutic targets, pathways and technologies

>Internal materials are due to Industry Engagement (engage@bu.edu) by Monday, June 1, 2026.

Other Opportunities

STEM

ARPA-H Systematic Targeting of Microplastics (STOMP) (5/6)

Up to $144 million to uncover how microplastics build up in the body—and drive new ways to protect people from their potential health impact.
>Solution Summary Due: Monday, May 6, 2026, 5:00PM ET

>Full Proposal Due: Monday, June 22, 2026, 5:00PM ET

Proposer Day April 22, 2026

STEM

Spring 2026 Amazon Research Awards Call for Proposals (5/6)

Topics spanning security, robotics, agentic AI, and others.

>Submission Deadline: May 6.

*Limited submissions are funding opportunities that limit the number of applications an institution may put forward. Faculty may not apply directly for an opportunity without institutional endorsement. All current competitions can be found at bu.infoready4.com.

For more, be sure to check out opportunities highlighted by BU Office of Research, Foundation Relations, and Federal Relations.

Stay Updated on New Funding Opportunities

Need help submitting a grant?

Hariri Institute provides full pre- and post-award grant administration services.

Learn more here or contact Emily Johnson, Associate Director of Research Administration for Hariri Institute at emilypj@bu.edu.

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The Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering initiates research convergence and accelerates integrated initiatives with social impact at the nexus of the computational and data sciences. It achieves this mission by promoting discovery and innovations across a broad set of disciplines, inspired by challenges in engineering; social, health and management sciences; and the arts. A federated entity at the crossroads of computational research, the Hariri Institute includes a number of centers and initiatives that work in collaboration to advance the Institute's ambitious research portfolio.

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