NRT: An Interdisciplinary Training Program to Accelerate Fundamental Science Translation

About This Grant

This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Oklahoma will introduce an innovative program that will equip graduate students with fundamental knowledge, transferable skills, and social/commercial awareness needed to provide innovation and real-world solutions for timely challenges important for the Oklahoman economy and that of other landlocked states. Named for Diana, the mythical goddess of the hunt, the program’s research focuses on the transport of molecules such as heavy metal ions and drugs through complex interfaces such as membranes, both man-made and natural. Applications of this work address national priorities in health, advanced materials and energy sectors, such as the extraction of industry-relevant minerals from wastewater, targeted drug delivery, water purification, and advanced materials design from domestic resources. Diana will train over 40 Ph.D. students, including 24 funded trainees, whose backgrounds are in materials science, chemical and biological engineering, chemistry, and physics. Diana’s trainees will learn how to collaborate across disciplines, communicate their ideas to different audiences, and translate their discoveries into commercial technologies and start-ups. The program will place emphasis on first generation students, including those from rural communities across the Heartland, and will help them build strong careers in science, technology, and innovation. The success of the trainees will make the economy of the state more competitive. Diana’s convergent research focuses on controlling the molecular traffic across complex interfaces, a fundamental process relevant to membrane filtration, drug delivery, and energy production and storage, among other challenges. Trainees will work in interdisciplinary teams, combining experimental and computational methods such as material synthesis, molecular modeling, characterization techniques, interface-sensitive measurements, and data-driven materials discovery using artificial intelligence. The research projects will be inspired by timely national challenges with particular local relevance for Oklahoma’s communities. The training model includes a five-course core curriculum and elective courses on data literacy, communication, and entrepreneurship. Trainees will participate in a summer school, complete Individual Development Plans guided by faculty, peer, and professional mentors, and engage in translational experiences such as internships and innovation workshops. Hands-on communication training will benefit from a partnership with journalism students that will culminate in a yearly workshop designed to communicate to non-experts the discoveries enabled by this training program. Embedded within a newly launched interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering, this traineeship will institutionalize a scalable approach to interdisciplinary STEM training with strong industrial collaborations that will continue after the expiration of the NRT grant. Diana will produce graduates who are equipped to work across sectors, advance fundamental science, and translate discoveries to meet regional and national needs. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.