Your monthly dose of research and inspiration FINDINGS

Here at UC's Office of Research, we're looking ahead As the leading R1 urban university in our region, UC's unrivaled talent is busy solving problems that matter—like UC Professor Aaishish Priye, pictured above, with the UC graduate and undergraduate assistants in his lab: Manaswini Masetty, Isteaque Ahmed, Elijah Ditchendorf and Salar Balou, pictured left to right. They're focused on the study of microfluidics, examining the behavior of fluids through micro-channels and creating new technologies for manufacturing microminiaturized devices. These lab-on-chip systems have many possible applications, including environmental sampling and genetic analysis.  Priye’s team is working on a portable device for at-home testing of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. The Office of Research awarded Priye with a $10,000 planning grant as part of the Digital Futures Anchor Development Program to do this work and build working relationships with other UC researchers studying medicine, artificial intelligence and machine learning to put the technology on smartphones and drones. Read the October Findings feature article  UC prof a finalist in NIST post-quantum security competition Cryptography keeps our bank accounts safe when we buy things online; allows our computers to do software updates safely and assures confidentiality and authenticity in our emails. But today's security methods are expected to be no match for the quantum computer, which, if created, could solve certain computational problems much more quickly threatening the world’s ever-growing information-technology infrastructure.  Enter tenured UC mathematics professor Jintai Ding, who has created a post-quantum cryptographic algorithm—called Rainbow—to stump a quantum computer.  Rainbow is now one of seven finalists in a competition to choose the post-quantum security standards for use on the post-quantum internet in the United States and beyond.

Welcome to our new faculty researchers Fifty-nine people attended the Office of Research's New Faculty Research Orientation at the beginning of the academic year. We broke the list down by college so you can welcome your new colleagues. Who knows, maybe one of them has similar research interests or could provide the opportunity for collaboration. Either way, we're excited to add these Bearcat researchers to our roster!

Office of Research Internal Funding Opportunities Attention: The Office of Research will announce the Fall 2020 round of internal funding opportunities later this month. These opportunities will include the Office of Research Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Advancement Program, the URC Graduate Student Stipend and Research Cost Program for Faculty-Student Collaboration, and the new URC Faculty Scholars Program targeting junior faculty. More details on each program will be posted soon at the Office of Research Internal Funding page. Details and application deadlines are expected to be announced on or before Oct. 28. Information on the Office of Research Collaborative Advancement Grants Program-Pilot Funding is anticipated to be released on or before Dec. 9.

Time Sensitive

UC Sigma Xi Fall Mixer The UC Chapter of Sigma Xi will hold its annual fall mixer virtually this year on Thursday, Oct. 22 from 4:30-6 p.m. The mixer will include scientific presentations from this year's Grant in Aid of Research winners (cosponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Graduate School). The graduate student awardees speaking will be Megan Corcoran from CAS Department of Geology; Christopher Holmes from the CAS Department of Biological Sciences and Zhen Yuan from the CEAS Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. The mixer is open to all. Attend mixer on Zoom Outside Activity Reports due soon Heads up, all faculty and staff must complete their OAR between Oct. 12 and Nov. 13. Those who engage in research, creative and/or scholarly work at UC cannot submit their report until they have completed the 2020 Conflict of Interest Training, a seven-minute video, which is required every four years. UC employees over 50 percent full-time equivalent must disclose outside activities. Researchers are required to report any activity outside of the scope of normal UC duties—even duties performed at UC and unpaid activities. Visit the website for more. Virtual UC Data Day: Oct. 23 World Changing Data: How Digital Data Will Change our Future Sponsored by UC Libraries and IT@UC, the virtual UC DATA Day will include a day of informative panels and feature keynote speaker Glenn Ricart, founder and CTO, US Ignite Registration, who will present "A Day In Our Digital Future – The Intersection between Data and Humans."   Researchers producing and using data face similar, but unique, challenges in data management, data sharing, reproducible research and preservation. This event highlights these challenges and showcases solutions and opportunities available to the broad research and education community.  UC Data Day2020 focuses on the role and impact of the world-changing data generated by the explosion in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and VR/AR, including how we work, live and educate in our urban digital present and future.    Follow this link for event details, including registration and panel information.

This OoR program can improve your chances of getting research funding ... Last year, researchers that attended Research and Development Support Series sessions were 5.2 times more likely to obtain external funding than those who didn't. Series sessions in October: 10 a.m., Oct. 15: International research engagement 9 a.m., Oct. 27: Building Your Research Team - Undergrads, Graduate Students and Postdocs Noon, Nov. 4: Writing the One Pager - The Shortest Path to Success 9 a.m., Nov. 10: Advanced Budgeting  All series events

Research in the news UC biologists say silk face masks could provide better protection than cotton or synthetics UC scientist battles disease up close and in the laboratory The New York Times: Why so blue, tarantula?

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