Schatz Announces Federal Funding For UH Research And Collaboration

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) announced that  the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa will receive five grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to strengthen climate and hazards research, further scientific understanding of past, current, and future climate change, and facilitate national and international collaboration.

“These grants demonstrate that the University of Hawai`i is taking the lead in researching and understanding the impacts of climate change,” Senator Schatz said. “These investments help expand our state’s research industry and will produce the science we can use to make better decisions on a local and global scale.”

The five grants include:

• $750,000 from NASA’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) for the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, part of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), to design and build an infrared instrument for remotely detecting and quantifying greenhouse gases. 
• $168,705 from the NSF to the International Pacific Research Center, part of SOEST, to research how the ocean absorbed and stored carbon dioxide and methane gases in warmer, prehistoric times.  As glaciers and sea ice melt in modern times, understanding the past can provide useful clues about our future. 
• $58,479 from the NSF to the Information and Computer Sciences department to develop techniques for large-scale data visualization that would be able to be used by citizen scientists, public policy decision makers, and students.
• $27,911 from the NSF to Institute for Astronomy to sponsor an Eclipse Planning Workshop that will bring together eclipse experts, educators and scientists in advance of the August 21, 2017 eclipse to plan for the testing of new technologies that could be incorporated into ground-based and space-based observatories.
• $23,408 from the NSF to fund the participation of eight students and one faculty member in a Doctoral Consortium at the 5th International ACM Conference on Collaboration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance and Technology (CABS 2014) in Kyoto, Japan.    

EPSCoR awards funding to strengthen research infrastructure important to NASA’s research and technology needs in states historically underserved by federal research funding.  Across the nation, EPSCoR funds have improved research infrastructure, contributed to economic growth, supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, and broadened the base of research expertise available to participating federal agencies. 

In 2013, Senator Schatz sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership with Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and other senators to ensure funding for the EPSCoR program in the FY 2014 appropriations bill. 

Senator Schatz requested $7.5 billion for the National Science Foundation in FY 2015 appropriations bill, resulting in an increase of $83 million from the FY 2014 budget in the most recent Senate version of the bill. 

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