Two PES faculty awarded CRCW grant

Prof. Eric Jones and Prof. Jeff Brock received the CRCW grant from UCCS Office of Research. This competitive seed grant is intended to establish research programs and assist faculty members to seeks nationally competitive funding.

Prof. Eric Jones:

Infectious disease often starts with a small-sized microbial population. The growth of this population is intrinsically noisy which produces a distribution of infection outcomes. For example, individuals exposed to a pathogen at the same time might first feel symptoms at different times. A better understanding of the uncertainty in disease time courses can be used to treat illness: a doctor will make better clinical decisions if they know severe symptoms will onset in 5 to 6 days instead of 3 to 8 days. This CRCW award will support research that empirically and theoretically quantifies the uncertainty in microbial population growth over time.

Measuring noisy population growth. (a) Optical density, measured over time with a plate reader, is proportional to bacterial abundance. (b) The temperature in the plate reader is shifted to mimic a change in the bacteria's environment. (c) Initial population sizes of bacterial populations are quantified with spot plating.

Prof. Jeff Brock:

Jeff Brock’s group is pleased to have received a Faculty Seed Grant from the UCCS Committee on Research and Creative Works (CRCW) to develop a low-cost experimental platform for controlling the motion of magnetic boundaries, known as domain walls, in thin-film materials. Using a programmable laser engraving system recently acquired through the US Department of Energy’s Laboratory Equipment Donation Program, Jeff Brock’s group will repurpose this tool to create patterned “energy landscapes” that guide domain wall motion. The project will also investigate how voltage-driven ion migration can be combined with laser heating to create a new class of reconfigurable magnetic materials relevant for future spintronic and neuromorphic computing technologies. Through this work, an undergraduate research assistant will receive extensive training in advanced materials synthesis, processing, and characterization, highlighting the cutting-edge research opportunities available to students at UCCS!