Research at UMass Lowell

Grants & Awards

UMass Lowell recently received several top research awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Army, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and others. Our faculty are among the many world-class researchers competing annually for research grants, on both the local and national level. These winning proposals demonstrate the outstanding research taking place at UMass Lowell.

Featured Award

Professor Robert Giles

UMass Lowell's Submillimeter-Wave Technology Laboratory (STL) received a renewal grant from the U.S. Army for $23 million over five years to fund its program to "assist the government in acquiring and analyzing surveillance radar imagery."

For the past 30 years, the STL has been at the forefront of terahertz transmitter and receiver technologies and has pioneered the design and fabrication of broadband solid-state multiplier sources, high-power carbon dioxide and far-infrared lasers and laser/microwave hybrid systems. The Lab has developed and applied these technologies in the areas of military surveillance, homeland security, medical diagnostics and scientific and academic research.

Director of STL, Prof. Bob Giles, says the grant is "a testament to and recognition of our high level of expertise in the field. Our research is focused on using terahertz frequency sources and receivers to scale the Army’s millimeter-wave and microwave airborne radar systems.”

The grant represents one of the largest single awards received by the University.

Other Winning Proposals include

  • Laura Punnett's five year NIOSH award for $4.5 million, titled, "Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace"

  • Tzu-Yang Yu's U.S. DOT's award for $1.3 million, titled, "Multi-Modal Remote Sensing System (MRSS) for Transportation Infrastructure Inspection and Monitoring" 

  • Fred Martin's NSF award for $970,825, titled, "Collaborative Research: Transforming Science Learning with iSENSE, an Interactive Web Environment for Data Sharing and Visualization"

  • Bridgette Budhlall's Industry/DOD award for $505,373, titled, "Polymer Films for Chemical Sensors," and NSF award for $171, 552, titled, "Biobased Plastics for a Sustainable Future: Undergraduate Educational Modules for the Engineering Curricula"

  • Erno Sajo's NRC's award for $450,000, titled, "Faculty Development in Nuclear Science and Engineering at UML"

  • David Kriebel's National Institute for Occupational Safety award for $420,740, titled, "Occupational Health & Safety Training Grants (Graduate Training Program)"

  • Xiaobai Li's NIH award for $237,464, titled, "New Technology to Preserve Patient Privacy and Data Quality in Health Research" 

  • Xinwen Fu's NSF award for $166,123, titled, "Small:Collaborative Research: Membership Inference in a Differentially Private World and Beyond"

  • John White's NRC award for $130,052, titled, "Development of Reactor Experiments Course at UMass-Lowell"

  • Byungki Kim's Industry/NASA award for $129,998, titled, "Functionalized Graphene Sheets-Polymer Nanocomposite for Composite Cryotanks"

  • Kate MacKenzie Swanger's NSF award for $120,470, titled, "Multi-nuclide approach to systematically evaluate the scatter in surface exposure ages in Antarctica and to develop consistent alpine glacier chronologies"