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UM invited to submit NSF Engine proposal

UM is the lead on an NSF Engines proposal that was invited to submit for up to $160M over 10 years. The project is Forest and Rangeland Technology Hub for Economic Resilience (FARTHER.org). More information can be found here: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/regional-innovation-engines/updates/explore-data-collaborate-71-nsf-regional-innovation-engines

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UM Receives National Award from APLU

University of Montana received the inaugural Public Impact Research award from APLU. Congratulations to our two faculty, Drs. Goforth and Sun for their efforts and to their Arlee partners. More details are found here: APLU Honors University of Montana for Public Impact Research Efforts - APLU

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UM and MT Receive $41M EDA Tech Hub

Montana was funded by the EDA Regional Tech Hub for $41M over 5 years. The Headwaters Tech Hub proposal was submitted by Accelerate Montana and UM's component project for ASSIST Testbeds was funded at $15M over 5 years. Here is a link to press release: https://www.eda.gov/news/press-release/2024/07/02/biden-harris-administration-announces-next-funding-round-504-million

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UM Part of $75M EDA Tech Hub Proposal

Late last week we submitted a component project application to the EDA as part of the Headwaters Tech Hub that when successful will bring up to $75 million in new federal funds to our region to implement a set of projects aimed at raising our tech ecosystem to the next level. UM has portions of projects for a testbed at Lubrecht forest and workforce development. You can find a press release marking our submission here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/montanas-headwaters-technology-hub-submits-75-million-vqe6c/

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UM Faculty Article on Cycling and Fire Fighting

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UM Awarded NSF Innovation Engines Grant

The National Science Foundation just announced the first-ever Regional Innovation Engines awards and UM is among 44 unique teams spanning universities, nonprofits, businesses and other organizations across the U.S. states and territories. These are development awards of $1M over two years to develop and submit a Type 2 proposal seeking up to $160M over 10 years to create a regional economic driver.  The UM proposal is in advancements in technology for Precision Forestry and Rangeland Management.

https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/regional-innovation-engines?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

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UM Ecology & Evolution #11 in US

The University of Montana program in Ecology & Evolution is ranked #11 in the US (#23 in the world) by Research.com.  UM is above notable universities like Arizona State, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton.  We are a “Global Top 25 program”. https://research.com/university-rankings/ecology-and-evolution/us

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UM Faculty in The Conversation

The Conversation just published a new article this afternoon by UM CFC faculty member Phil Higuera, Jamie Peeler and Kim Davis (now with US Forest Service). It's related to their research paper in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Here's the link: https://theconversation.com/the-wests-iconic-forests-are-increasingly-struggling-to-recover-from-wildfires-altering-how-fires-burn-could-turn-that-around-200668

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UM Conversation about Fire

Must-read article by UM’s Phillip Higuera and colleagues from UC Boulder not only shows a large increase in the number of home and buildings destroyed in over the past decade but also has an interesting analysis of the change in location of fires by state.

https://theconversation.com/western-wildfires-destroyed-246-more-homes-and-buildings-over-the-past-decade-fire-scientists-explain-whats-changing-197384

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UM #13 in Research Growth

The official NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey numbers for University Research for FY21 just came out. The HERD numbers are the national standard for reporting research activity.   Among the top-tier Carnegie Very High Research (R1) schools UM is at #13 (out of 146 R1 schools) in terms of growth with a 202% growth rate over the past decade.  Kudos to our faculty and students!

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We R1!

UM is now a Carnegie Research Very High Activity or R1 university, the top tier of research universities in the country.  Please see the breaking news in the Kaimin: http://www.montanakaimin.com/news/um-announces-top-tier-r1-research-designation/article_66100674-884d-11ec-a34c-731bdd935869.html

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UM Research Featured in NSF Recap

The research of Dr. Philip Higuera, a faculty member on the UM Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences in the W. A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation was recently featured in the National Science Foundation’s year-end recap.

https://beta.nsf.gov/science-matters/nsf-year-discovery-and-innovation

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WELL receives Google.org Award

Thru AccelerateMT the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Leadership Lab (W.E.L.L.) under Director Morgan Slemberger has received several grants to grow entrepreneurship among women and tribal communities. W.E.L.L. recently received an $850,000 grant from the Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls to support Indigenous women looking to start or grow a business in Montana. UM was one of only six organizations in the U.S. to receive the Google.org award.

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FLBS Hosts National Meeting

UM’s Flathead Lake Biological Station hosted the national Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) for the second year in a row. Flathead Lake residents and FLBS Advisory Board Member Lysbeth Anderson Working and her husband John Working were awarded the 2021 Mary Hufty Local Hero Award.  FLBS Research Professor Art McKee was named the recipient of the inaugural OBFS Distinguished Service Award.

https://flbs.umt.edu/newflbs/outreach/news-blog/posts/flbs-hosts-virtual-obfs-annual-meeting/

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UM Professor Elected to AAAS

Fred Allendorf, University of Montana Regents Professor of Biology Emeritus, recently was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Allendorf is just the second member of the academy ever elected from any Montana institution. Doug Emlen, a UM biology professor, was elected to the AAAS in 2016.  Quite an honor.

https://news.umt.edu/2019/04/041719aaas.php

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UM Professor Invited to Joint the Liggins Education Network for Science (LENScience)

Blakely Brown, Professor – Department of Health and Human Performance, has been invited to join The Liggins Education Network for Science (LENScience), established by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman who is the Chief Science Advisor in the Office of the New Zealand Prime Minister and Co-Chair of the World Health Organization’s Commission to End Childhood Obesity. Based at the University of Auckland, LENScience is a dedicated science education and translation group. The primary focus of the program is the prevention of non-communicable disease development (NCDs), including obesity, respiratory disease, cancer, diabetes, and dermatitis. Various aspects of the program are currently used in >250 New Zealand schools, and are being adapted and expanded for use in The Cook Islands and Tonga. Funded through the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), Professor Brown will join other researchers from the UK, Norway, China, Netherlands, Australia, Bangladesh, Jamaica, and the US to investigate schools as a setting for reducing risk factors associated with NCDs in children and adolescents. The WUN funding enables the team to: 1) identify agreed principles underpinning evaluation mechanisms designed to determine the development of cognitive and psychosocial competencies associated with sustained health-promoting behaviors in children and adolescents; 2) identify a range of programs through which evaluation tools based on these principles could be tested; and 3) progress funding applications to achieve the development and testing of such tools in a range of school-based NCD risk reduction programs across variable social, cultural and economic settings. Additionally, the WUN initiates collaborations with researchers who are interested in investigating interventions that reduce NCD risk in "at-risk" (primarily low socioeconomic) environments. The WUN Global Challenge is described here: http://www.wun.ac.uk/research/assessing-health-literacy-development-adolescents

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UM's EIR Program Has First Major Success

Datamaglia, a Missoula-based tech startup for mobile developers, has just scored a spot in this year’s round of Startup Chile. Datamaglia scored one of only 100 spots available to the 2,000-plus applicants. Startup Chile is an accelerator program that provides six months of hands-on support with $40,000 of non-equity seed funding. Datamaglia is a participant in the Entrepreneurship-In-Residency program offered by BlackStone Launchpad at the University of Montana. The EIR program is an eight-week startup accelerator that is being piloted by Matt Gangloff. The EIR program has eight other startup teams.