Current & Recent Faculty Research

HAILMEIER-C: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence and Language Modeling for Enhancing Innovation and Evaluating Research Claims
PI: Peter Jansen (The University of Arizona)
Funding: University of Pennsylvania, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $949,484
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – July 31, 2027
Publications:
"Matter-of-Fact: A Benchmark for Verifying the Feasibility of Literature-Supported Claims in Materials Science,” Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 2025
“CodeDistiller: Automatically Generating Code Libraries for Scientific Coding Agents,” Submitted November 2025
Website: www.darpa.mil/research/programs/scientific-feasibility 
Summary:
This project aims to use artificial intelligence to develop a system that evaluates whether a claim is scientifically feasible or not, using a combination of literature search, code-based simulation, and other techniques.

Next-Generation Teams
PI: Adarsh Pyarelal (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Clayton Morrison, Kobus Barnard, Winslow Burleson (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Payal Khosla (The University of Arizona)
Collaborators: Evan Carter (Army Research Laboratory)
Funding: U.S. Army Contracting Command, $882,546
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Website: wiki.lab.pyarelal.xyz/books/projects/page/next-generation-teams
Summary:
The Next Generation Teams project will conduct experiments to study the structured communication protocols that exist on workplace and other teams that use AI agents, the interventions AI agents use to correct deviations from those protocols, and the effects of AI on team performance, coordination, creativity and plan recognition.

DASS: A Framework for Smart Contract Wills
PI: Clayton Morrison
Funding: National Science Foundation, $748,328
Project Dates: October 2022 – September 2026
Publications:
“A Framework to Retrieve Relevant Laws for Will Execution,” Proceedings of the Natural Legal Language Processing Workshop, 2025
“Classify First, and Then Extract: Prompt Chaining Techniques for Information Extraction,” The 6th Natural Legal Language Processing Workshop, 2024
“Information Extraction from Legal Wills: How Well Does GPT-4 Do?” Findings of EMNLP, 2023
“Validity Assessment of Legal Will Statements as Natural Language Inference,” Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 2022
Website: ml4ai.github.io/nli4wills-corpus 
Summary: Researchers are developing accountable software by combining expertise in the law with techniques from natural language processing and formal methods for verifiable software generation and execution. By accountable, this means that the software will (1) verifiably follow all applicable rules and laws, (2) adapt appropriately to changes in laws, and (3) be explainable, so that non-programmers can understand what the code does and how it relates to what they intend. The project consists of a collaboration between the University of Arizona’s College of Information Science, James E. Rogers College of Law and Department of Computer Science.

Scientific Knowledge Extraction and Model Analysis (SKEMA)
PI: Adarsh Pyarelal
Funding: Lum.ai, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $1,433,646
Project Dates: December 2018 – April 2024
Publications:
“Variable Extraction for Model Recovery in Scientific Literature,” First Workshop on AI and Scientific Discovery: Directions and Opportunities, 2025
“When and Where Did it Happen? An Encoder-Decoder Model to Identify Scenario Context,” Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 2024 
“An Overview and Detail Layout for Visualizing Compound Graphs,” IEEE VIS, 2024 
“Learning Open Domain Multi-hop Search Using Reinforcement Learning,” NAACL Workshop SUKI: Structured and Unstructured Knowledge Integration, 2022
“MathAlign: Linking Formula Identifiers to their Contextual Natural Language Descriptions,” Proceedings of the 12th Edition of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 2020
“AutoMATES: Automated Model Assembly from Text, Equations, and Software,” Modeling the World’s Systems, 2019
Website: www.darpa.mil/research/programs/automating-scientific-knowledge-extraction-modeling
Summary: Under the DARPA Automating Scientific Knowledge Extraction and Modeling program, researchers developed SKEMA, a framework for extracting science models from software, text and equations. Applications include epidemiology models (e.g., COVID-19) and space weather.

Next-Generation Teams
PI: Adarsh Pyarelal (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Clayton Morrison, Kobus Barnard, Winslow Burleson (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Payal Khosla (The University of Arizona)
Collaborators: Evan Carter (Army Research Laboratory)
Funding: U.S. Army Contracting Command, $882,546
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Website: wiki.lab.pyarelal.xyz/books/projects/page/next-generation-teams
Summary:
The Next Generation Teams project will conduct experiments to study the structured communication protocols that exist on workplace and other teams that use AI agents, the interventions AI agents use to correct deviations from those protocols, and the effects of AI on team performance, coordination, creativity and plan recognition.

DASS: A Framework for Smart Contract Wills
PI: Clayton Morrison
Funding: National Science Foundation, $748,328
Project Dates: October 2022 – September 2026
Publications:
“A Framework to Retrieve Relevant Laws for Will Execution,” Proceedings of the Natural Legal Language Processing Workshop, 2025
“Classify First, and Then Extract: Prompt Chaining Techniques for Information Extraction,” The 6th Natural Legal Language Processing Workshop, 2024
“Information Extraction from Legal Wills: How Well Does GPT-4 Do?” Findings of EMNLP, 2023
“Validity Assessment of Legal Will Statements as Natural Language Inference,” Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 2022
Website: ml4ai.github.io/nli4wills-corpus 
Summary: Researchers are developing accountable software by combining expertise in the law with techniques from natural language processing and formal methods for verifiable software generation and execution. By accountable, this means that the software will (1) verifiably follow all applicable rules and laws, (2) adapt appropriately to changes in laws, and (3) be explainable, so that non-programmers can understand what the code does and how it relates to what they intend. The project consists of a collaboration between the University of Arizona’s College of Information Science, James E. Rogers College of Law and Department of Computer Science.

Advancing Equitable Biology Research: Supporting Colombian Undergraduates through Programming and Phylogenetic Comparative Methods in R
PI: Cristian Román-Palacios (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Katherine Perez (Universidad del Valle, Colombia), Natalia Ramírez (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia)
Funding: National Geographic Society, $99,423
Project Dates: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026
Website: datadiversitylab.github.io/macrodata (English translation here)
Summary:
MacroData is a project created to strengthen, in a decentralized manner, programming and data analysis skills in evolutionary biology. Its focus is on supporting and connecting students and researchers in Colombia, with a teaching phylogenetic comparative methods through R.

Biotic and Abiotic Drivers of the Prevalence of the Gulf Coast Tick and an Associated Vector Borne Disease in Arizona
PI: Sabrina McNew (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Cristian Román-Palacios, Paulina Maldonado-Ruiz (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Henrey Deese (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Geological Survey, $438,945
Project Dates: August 15, 2024 – August 14, 2028
Website: www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/67a3f19bd34e63325c2b748a
Summary:
This project aims to study the Gulf Coast tick’s presence in Arizona in partnership with the Tucson Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy. Over the course of three years, the research team will capture birds and inspect them for ticks and take key health measurements. Researchers will then use these measurements to determine how the tick and its associated bacteria affect bird health. This will allow researchers to combine these data with a rigorous census of the tick across southeast Arizona to create maps of where this tick is found and identify the most important habitat features that affect its distribution and abundance. The results of this project will help determine whether changing climate, habitat loss, or dispersal by birds is the most likely cause behind the emergence of Gulf Coast ticks in Arizona.

CAMBIUM NRT-HDR: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation through Biodiversity Informatics Education and Mentoring
PI: Sabrina McNew (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Kacey Ernts (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Cristian Román-Palacios (The University of Arizona) and others
Funding: National Science Foundation, $2,999,549
Project Dates: April 1, 2024 – August 31, 2029
Website: cambium.arizona.edu
Summary:
CAMBIUM is a U.S. NSF-funded Research Traineeship Program aimed to prepare the next generation of scientists to leverage big biodiversity and social data to tackle and solve global challenges. CAMBIUM will create a thriving, sustainable model for training scientists to work across disciplines and acquire the skills to use bioinformatics and big data integration to predict outcomes and inform decision-making. Training students in these skills will develop a workforce capable of managing large-scale databases linking state-of-the-art biodiversity data with other high-quality datasets to address challenges in a One Health framework, resulting in significant societal impacts.

Collaborative Research: USA National Phenology Network 2.0: Reimagining How We Experience the Signs of the Seasons 
PI: Theresa Crimmins (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Rob Guralnick (Florida Museum of Natural History)
Key Personnel: Ann Shivers-McNair, Alison Meadows (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation / Infrastructure for Biological Research Program, $1,217,623
Project Dates: 2024-2028
Website: usanpn.org/nn/NewApp
Publications:
“Attending to Relations of Participation in an Information-as-Potentiality Approach,” Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting 2025 Symposium, 2025
“Collaborative Redesign of Nature’s Notebook,” Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, 2026 (poster)
Summary:
The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) is a national initiative that focuses on collecting and organizing phenological data to help support long-term tracking of seasonal events in plants and animals and better understand changes over time. In this project, the USA-NPN is undertaking a major overhaul of its mobile application, Nature’s Notebook, through a multi-step process led by the Mobile App Working Group (MAWG), a co-design collective composed of science graduate students and faculty, scientists working outside of academia, medical doctors and other community partners. The intended outcome of this effort is a larger pool of observations contributed from a greater diversity of locations and by a more diverse group of observers that will, in turn, yield a more robust dataset better suited for use in scientific discovery and documenting global change.

The Small Mammals of the Paisley and Connley Caves: Disentangling Drivers of Diversity in Pleistocene Extinction Survivors
PI: Rebecca Terry (Oregon State University
Co-PIs: Meaghan Wetherell (The University of Arizona
Funding: Oregon State University, National Science Foundation, $119,531
Project Dates: June 1, 2023 – May 31, 2026
Website: github.com/MeaghanWetherell/Chewaucan
Summary:
Researchers are looking at small mammal bones (rodents, rabbits, etc.) from two large archeology sites in Oregon that record animal bones for the last 18,000 years. They are comparing that to modern diversity and climate change to see how small mammal populations have reacted and changed over time. The University of Arizona component of the grant provides for an educational video game that highlights this research and other research conducted in that area of Oregon over the last 50 years: Finding Lake Chewaucan, available to wishlist on Steam. The video game launches in spring 2026. Wetherell been creating the game with a number of College of Information Science undergraduate game design students for the past three years. The game is open source, so may download the current version and use it in their own projects.

Preserving Research Data from Forest Service Experimental Areas in Arizona, Phase II
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $140,000
Project Dates: June 12, 2023 – May 12, 2028
Summary:
The University of Arizona is collaborating with the National Forest System to preserve and make accessible decades of historical research data from four Forest Service Experimental Areas in Flagstaff, Arizona. These areas, which include Fort Valley, Long Valley, Sierra Ancha and Beaver Creek, house valuable data in both paper and digital formats. The project aims to digitize and publish this data through the FS Research Data Archive, ensuring it remains accessible and usable for future scientific, educational and land management purposes. Additionally, the project will create digital versions of paper records for ongoing use while preserving the originals for long-term stewardship by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The collaboration will involve a data librarian working closely with the Forest Service’s Research Data Services and chief data officer to guide the project, which has the potential to impact data management across the entire National Forest System and beyond. InfoSci graduate and undergraduate students have worked on this project. Some of the students have traveled to the research areas to collect documents for reorganization, preservation and digitization.

Proof of Concept for a Forest Service-wide Data Catalog
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Staff Research Lead: JosephAveril Cate, Jr. (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $400,000
Project Dates: September 4, 2023 – November 3, 2026
Summary:
The project is national in scope, covering data from districts, forests, regions and the entire National Forest System, particularly wildfire data. The project involves a data librarian working with USFS Research Data Services and the chief data officer to integrate data management across multiple programs. It aims to establish a proof of concept that impacts a wide range of Forest Service data creators and users, with guidance from the USDA Axon Data Governance platform to ensure broad and effective data use. The project aims to create a comprehensive data inventory for the Forest Service to meet Evidence Act requirements, including developing a searchable data catalog with metadata. It targets datasets related to the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and seeks to integrate the selected data catalog platform with the USDA's enterprise data catalog and governance platform, while also marketing published datasets through federal platforms like data.gov and GeoPlatform.

I-Corps Translational Strategies for Experiential Supercomputing
PI: Win Burleson (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Gustavo De Oliveira Almeida, Steven Wood (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $50,000
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Summary:
This I-Corps project will advance translational strategies for the NSF MRI Holodeck in the areas of health and education. The Holodeck is a first-of-its-kind experiential supercomputing environment. It is a well-integrated, immersive, collaborative, virtual/physical extended reality environment providing unparalleled tools for research collaborations, intellectual exploration, education, and creative output. It incorporates visual, audio, and physical components; novel AI technologies to enhance human-human, human-agent, and human-robot social interactions; rapid prototyping and fabrication tools; and tightly coupled interactive visual, audio, and physical experiences. The Holodeck provides a flexible, modular, reconfigurable infrastructure with a comprehensive capacity to capture and analyze behavioral, physiological, affective, cognitive, contextual and environmental data.  It is capable of providing real-time immersive data visualization and haptic experience coupled with sophisticated co-located and distributed digital twinning capabilities.
Awards: 2025 NSF Spirit of I-Corps Award

3D Research Data Curation Framework (3DFrame): Understanding 3D Data Creation, Analysis and Preservation Practices across Disciplines
PI: Zack Lischer-Katz (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Matt Cook (Harvard Library)
Funding: Institute of Museum and Library Services, $599,816
Project Dates: August 1, 2023 – July 31, 2027
Publication: “Exploring the Curation Practices of 3D Data Creators,” Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2024.
Summary:
Three-dimensional, or 3D data creation methods and virtual reality (VR)-based visualization techniques are increasingly common in interdisciplinary research and in the classroom. The 3D Research Data Curation Framework (3DFrame) project is a “Research in Service to Practice” project exploring how researchers use 3D data to align existing 3D data creation and curation methods with FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability) data principles and develop methods for making 3D data usable with immersive visualization (e.g., VR) and other emerging analytic techniques. Using qualitative methods and emerging technologies, the PIs are developing a digital curation framework and an interactive toolkit that will enable digital curators, librarians and other information professionals to support the creation, curation, analysis, publication and use of 3D data in immersive viewing environments for the benefit of researchers and instructors across disciplines.

Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS) Internship & Resource Development Project
PI: Jamie A. Lee (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Berlin Loa (The University of Arizona)
Funding: Mellon Foundation, $1,000,000
Project Dates: July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2027
Website: archivalfocas.org 
Summary:
FOCAS is a collective of information science faculty members representing nine academic institutions across Canada and the United States that include the University of Arizona, UCLA, University of Washington, Dominican University, Black Research Consortium at University of Chicago, University of British Columbia, McGill University, Eastern Carolina University and CUNY-Queens. With $6.5 million funding overall, each institution facilitates paid internships for Master’s in Library and Information Science (MLIS) students with local community archives partners—training MLIS students to respond to the needs of community archives. FOCAS is providing a model for training and cultivating the next generation of information professionals as community archives and stewards, support community archives of historically underrepresented groups and re-envisioning the archives curriculum to better understand what community archives are and do in, with and for the communities they represent. As R1 research universities and teaching-focused institutions, these universities’ regions hold community archives that are engaged in vital work to preserve and make accessible the stories of our diverse humanity.

CyberSkills2Work
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Shengjie Xu (The University of Arizona)
Funding: University of West Florida, U.S. Department of Defense, $210,792
Project Dates: 2025-2028
Summary:
The CyberSkills2Work grant initiative focuses on expanding access to industry-relevant cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) training that directly aligns with workforce needs. Through hands-on learning, employer engagement and clear pathways to employment, the initiative helps learners build practical cyber skills that translate into real-world jobs. The University of Arizona is part of a national coalition of universities supporting this program.

Department of War Cyber Service Academy
PI: Josh Pauli (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Security Agency, $261,446
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Website: www.cyber.mil/dod-workforce-innovation-directorate/csa
Summary:
The objectives of the Cyber Service Academy are to promote higher education in all disciplines of cyber, to enhance the Department of War’s ability to recruit and retain cyber and IT specialists, to increase the number of military and civilian personnel in the DoW with this expertise and, ultimately, to enhance the nation’s cyber posture.

CyberAI Curriculum Mapping and CLARK Development
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Robert Honomichl, Ryan Straight, Shengjie Xu, Li Xu (The University of Arizona)
Funding: Towson University, National Security Agency, $53,193
Project Dates: 2025
Summary:
As one of only six institutions nationally validated as a CyberAI Program of Study, the University of Arizona contributes vetted, standards-aligned materials to a national repository to support consistency and quality across post-secondary education. This contribution reflects both national recognition of our expertise and a commitment to advancing scalable, high-impact CyberAI education nationwide.

Arizona Cybersecurity Clinic: Supporting Communities and Small Businesses by Conducting Risk and Vulnerability Assessments through Student Experiential Learning Opportunities
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Robert Honomichl, Shengjie Xu (The University of Arizona)
Funding: Tides Foundation, Google, Inc., $1,000,000
Project Dates: 2024-2030
Website: cyberacademy.arizona.edu
Summary:
The Arizona Cybersecurity Clinic at the University of Arizona is a community-focused experiential learning initiative where students and faculty provide free cybersecurity services, such as vulnerability assessments and security audits, to small businesses, nonprofits, schools and other local organizations that may lack the resources for professional cyber support. Established with support from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund and part of the broader Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics, the clinic helps protect community partners from online threats while enabling students to gain real-world skills and career-ready experience in cybersecurity.

National Cybersecurity Teaching Academy 3.0
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Robert Honomichl (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Nicole Kontak (The University of Arizona)
Funding: University of Arkansas Little Rock, National Security Agency, $827,219
Project Dates: 2024-2027
Summary:
The National Cybersecurity Teaching Academy (NCTA) is a U.S. graduate-level program that prepares high school educators to teach cybersecurity by offering a 12- to 18-credit graduate certificate with coursework in cybersecurity fundamentals, network security and teaching methods tailored for the secondary classroom. By equipping teachers with both technical knowledge and pedagogical skills, the academy aims to expand and strengthen cybersecurity education nationwide so more students can access rigorous, high-quality cybersecurity learning opportunities.

2024 DoD Cyber Scholarship Program and Capacity Building: SAFE LEARN: Security Assessments for Experiential Learning in Ecosystems with Area and Regional Needs
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Robert Honomichl (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Security Agency, $342,794 ($146,760 for SAFE LEARN)
Project Dates: 2024-2026
Summary:
An expansion project of the Arizona Cybersecurity Clinic in collaboration with Grand Canyon University, Estrella Mountain Community College, and Pima Community College.

2024 DoD GenCyber Grant
PI: Robert Honomichl (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Funding: Dakota State University, National Security Agency, $89,973
Project Dates: 2024-2026
Summary:
The University of Arizona GenCyber program in 2025 provided middle school students with a free, hands-on introduction to cybersecurity, covering core concepts like digital safety, cryptography and ethical computing in an engaging campus-based setting. As part of the national GenCyber initiative, the program aimed to spark early interest in cybersecurity careers while broadening access to foundational cyber education for diverse learners. 

The 502 Project: Building Gateways to the Cybersecurity Community
PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Funding: University of South Florida, National Security Agency, $29,988
Project Dates: 2024
Summary:
The 502 Project is a nonprofit initiative building a free, inclusive cybersecurity community platform that connects students with mentors, experts, organized challenges and events to help bridge the gap between early interest and formal pathways into cybersecurity careers. It aims to centralize volunteer mentorship, skill-building opportunities and networking across education, industry and community groups so aspiring cybersecurity professionals—especially high school students—can explore and advance in the field more easily.

Middle School CTE Accelerator
PI: Robert Honomichl (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Paul Wagner (The University of Arizona)
Funding: Luminary Labs, LLC, $85,000
Project Dates: July 1, 2023 – January 31, 2024
Summary:
The University of Arizona was one of five institutions selected to host a Middle Grades CTE Accelerator program. This initiative was closely related to the CyberNet Academies, which were funded by the Office of Career and Technical Education. The Middle Grades CTE Accelerator was designed to work with 10 middle school teachers in the Tucson area to provide cybersecurity education curriculum, pedagogical best practices and ongoing mentoring. The professional development consisted of 80 hours of online instruction and 40 hours of face-to-face instruction. Participants were also provided a technology package to continue their work on cybersecurity topics. 

Cybersecurity High School Innovations
PI: Robert Honomichl (The University of Arizona)
Funding: City University of Seattle, National Security Agency, $21,294
Project Dates: October 1, 2022 – December 31, 2023; October 1, 2023 – August 17, 2024
Summary:
The Cybersecurity High School Innovations (CHI) program was designed to provide cybersecurity education and professional development to 40 high school teachers each year. Each year, the program consisted of five weeks of online instruction, a week-long summit in Seattle and year-long mentoring. The CHI project was initially designed to serve high school teachers from a seven-state region. Although Arizona was not one of the initial states in the project, it was added during years two and three of the grant. 

Open and FAIR Samples: Maturing the Sample Data Ecosystem
PI: Natalie Raia (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $599,462
Project Dates: January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2028 (estimated)
Summary:
This project advances FAIR principles in the Earth and space science sample data ecosystem by promoting widespread adoption of persistent identifier (PID) infrastructure, ensuring that samples are uniquely identified, persistently linked to research outputs and properly cited in the scholarly record. Through analysis, coordination, education and community engagement across researchers, sample repositories, data repositories and publishers, the project aims to build a more integrated and sustainable open science infrastructure for sample-based research.

FAIROS RCN: Ethical Open Science for Past Global Change Data
PI: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $246,097
Project Dates: January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2027 (estimated)
Website: eos-rcn.github.io/web/home
Summary:
In this Research Coordination Network (RCN), researchers aim to build technical and social capacity among community-curated data repositories in the quaternary sciences (e.g., paleoecology, archaeology, paleobiology). They are doing this by supporting technical implementation of ethical open science principles and developing communities of practice focused on CARE and FAIR principles.

Internet of Samples (iSamples): Toward an Interdisciplinary Cyberinfrastructure for Material Samples
PI: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $1,072,351.00
Project Dates: August 1, 2020 – July 31, 2026
Website: isamples.org
Summary:
The Internet of Samples (iSamples) is a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project to design, develop and promote service infrastructure to uniquely, consistently and conveniently identify material samples, record metadata about them and persistently link them to other samples and derived digital content, including images, data and publications. 

Next Generation Interoperable Data Infrastructure for Geoscience Sample Data (EarthChem, LEPR/traceDs, SESAR): IEDA Re-invented
PI: Kerstin Lehnert (Columbia University) 
Co-PIs: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona), Peng Ji (Columbia University)
Funding: Columbia University, National Science Foundation, $257,591
Project Dates: August 15, 2022 – July 31, 2027 (estimated)
Website: www.geosamples.org
Summary:
The Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance is a collaborative data infrastructure of three complementary data systems—EarthChem, LEPR/traceDs and SESAR—that jointly support researchers in the geosciences to share and access sample data following the FAIR data principles. In this grant, Andrea Thomer is funded as the product manager of SESAR, and is guiding the transition to a new, independent, multi-disciplinary infrastructure for sample registration.

Preserving Research Data from Forest Service Experimental Areas in Arizona, Phase II
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $140,000
Project Dates: June 12, 2023 – May 12, 2028
Summary:
The University of Arizona is collaborating with the National Forest System to preserve and make accessible decades of historical research data from four Forest Service Experimental Areas in Flagstaff, Arizona. These areas, which include Fort Valley, Long Valley, Sierra Ancha and Beaver Creek, house valuable data in both paper and digital formats. The project aims to digitize and publish this data through the FS Research Data Archive, ensuring it remains accessible and usable for future scientific, educational and land management purposes. Additionally, the project will create digital versions of paper records for ongoing use while preserving the originals for long-term stewardship by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The collaboration will involve a data librarian working closely with the Forest Service’s Research Data Services and chief data officer to guide the project, which has the potential to impact data management across the entire National Forest System and beyond. InfoSci graduate and undergraduate students have worked on this project. Some of the students have traveled to the research areas to collect documents for reorganization, preservation and digitization.

Proof of Concept for a Forest Service-wide Data Catalog
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Staff Research Lead: JosephAveril Cate, Jr. (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $400,000
Project Dates: September 4, 2023 – November 3, 2026
Summary:
The project is national in scope, covering data from districts, forests, regions and the entire National Forest System, particularly wildfire data. The project involves a data librarian working with USFS Research Data Services and the chief data officer to integrate data management across multiple programs. It aims to establish a proof of concept that impacts a wide range of Forest Service data creators and users, with guidance from the USDA Axon Data Governance platform to ensure broad and effective data use. The project aims to create a comprehensive data inventory for the Forest Service to meet Evidence Act requirements, including developing a searchable data catalog with metadata. It targets datasets related to the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and seeks to integrate the selected data catalog platform with the USDA's enterprise data catalog and governance platform, while also marketing published datasets through federal platforms like data.gov and GeoPlatform.

I-Corps Translational Strategies for Experiential Supercomputing
PI: Win Burleson (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Gustavo De Oliveira Almeida, Steven Wood (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $50,000
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Summary:
This I-Corps project will advance translational strategies for the NSF MRI Holodeck in the areas of health and education. The Holodeck is a first-of-its-kind experiential supercomputing environment. It is a well-integrated, immersive, collaborative, virtual/physical extended reality environment providing unparalleled tools for research collaborations, intellectual exploration, education, and creative output. It incorporates visual, audio, and physical components; novel AI technologies to enhance human-human, human-agent, and human-robot social interactions; rapid prototyping and fabrication tools; and tightly coupled interactive visual, audio, and physical experiences. The Holodeck provides a flexible, modular, reconfigurable infrastructure with a comprehensive capacity to capture and analyze behavioral, physiological, affective, cognitive, contextual and environmental data.  It is capable of providing real-time immersive data visualization and haptic experience coupled with sophisticated co-located and distributed digital twinning capabilities.
Awards: 2025 NSF Spirit of I-Corps Award

VCR: Virtual Cognitive Rehabilitation Using a Virtual Reality Spatial Navigation Application for Veterans with a History of Traumatic Brain Injury
PI: Jonathan Lifshitz (University of Michigan)
Co-PIs: Lila Boz, Ren Boz (The University of Arizona), Matthew Law (University of Michigan)
Funding: Arizona Veterans Research and Education Foundation, $499,669
Project Dates: August 31, 2024 – August 31, 2027
Publications: “Insights from the Participatory Design of a Virtual Reality Spatial Navigation Application for Veterans with a History of TBI,” IEEE Xplore, 2024
Summary:
This research aims to deliver cognitive rehabilitation for individuals with a history of traumatic brain injury through a virtual reality serious game featuring five novel virtual environments populated with randomly generated spots. The researchers hypothesize that exposure to novel environments may activate neural populations important to spatial learning, thereby potentially facilitating cognitive rehabilitation. Users explore these environments and complete destination-finding tasks across multiple levels with gradually increasing difficulty.

I-Corps Translational Strategies for Experiential Supercomputing
PI: Win Burleson (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Gustavo De Oliveira Almeida, Steven Wood (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $50,000
Project Dates: September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026
Summary:
This I-Corps project will advance translational strategies for the NSF MRI Holodeck in the areas of health and education. The Holodeck is a first-of-its-kind experiential supercomputing environment. It is a well-integrated, immersive, collaborative, virtual/physical extended reality environment providing unparalleled tools for research collaborations, intellectual exploration, education, and creative output. It incorporates visual, audio, and physical components; novel AI technologies to enhance human-human, human-agent, and human-robot social interactions; rapid prototyping and fabrication tools; and tightly coupled interactive visual, audio, and physical experiences. The Holodeck provides a flexible, modular, reconfigurable infrastructure with a comprehensive capacity to capture and analyze behavioral, physiological, affective, cognitive, contextual and environmental data.  It is capable of providing real-time immersive data visualization and haptic experience coupled with sophisticated co-located and distributed digital twinning capabilities.
Awards: 2025 NSF Spirit of I-Corps Award

VCR: Virtual Cognitive Rehabilitation Using a Virtual Reality Spatial Navigation Application for Veterans with a History of Traumatic Brain Injury
PI: Jonathan Lifshitz (University of Michigan)
Co-PIs: Lila Boz, Ren Boz (The University of Arizona) and Matthew Law (University of Michigan)
Funding: Arizona Veterans Research and Education Foundation, $499,669
Project Dates: August 31, 2024 – August 31, 2027
Publications:
“Insights from the Participatory Design of a Virtual Reality Spatial Navigation Application for Veterans with a History of TBI,” IEEE Xplore, 2024
Summary:
This research aims to deliver cognitive rehabilitation for individuals with a history of traumatic brain injury through a virtual reality serious game featuring five novel virtual environments populated with randomly generated spots. The researchers hypothesize that exposure to novel environments may activate neural populations important to spatial learning, thereby potentially facilitating cognitive rehabilitation. Users explore these environments and complete destination-finding tasks across multiple levels with gradually increasing difficulty.

Biotic and Abiotic Drivers of the Prevalence of the Gulf Coast Tick and an Associated Vector Borne Disease in Arizona
PI: Sabrina McNew (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Cristian Román-Palacios, Paulina Maldonado-Ruiz (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Henrey Deese (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Geological Survey, $438,945
Project Dates: August 15, 2024 – August 14, 2028
Website: www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/67a3f19bd34e63325c2b748a
Summary:
This project aims to study the Gulf Coast tick’s presence in Arizona in partnership with the Tucson Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy. Over the course of three years, the research team will capture birds and inspect them for ticks and take key health measurements. Researchers will then use these measurements to determine how the tick and its associated bacteria affect bird health. This will allow researchers to combine these data with a rigorous census of the tick across southeast Arizona to create maps of where this tick is found and identify the most important habitat features that affect its distribution and abundance. The results of this project will help determine whether changing climate, habitat loss, or dispersal by birds is the most likely cause behind the emergence of Gulf Coast ticks in Arizona.

Collaborative Research: USA National Phenology Network 2.0: Reimagining How We Experience the Signs of the Seasons 
PI: Theresa Crimmins (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Rob Guralnick (Florida Museum of Natural History)
Key Personnel: Ann Shivers-McNair, Alison Meadows (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation / Infrastructure for Biological Research Program, $1,217,623
Project Dates: 2024-2028
Website: usanpn.org/nn/NewApp 
Publications:
“Attending to Relations of Participation in an Information-as-Potentiality Approach,” Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting 2025 Symposium, 2025
“Collaborative Redesign of Nature’s Notebook,” Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, 2026 (poster)
Summary:
The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) is a national initiative that focuses on collecting and organizing phenological data to help support long-term tracking of seasonal events in plants and animals and better understand changes over time. In this project, the USA-NPN is undertaking a major overhaul of its mobile application, Nature’s Notebook, through a multi-step process led by the Mobile App Working Group (MAWG), a co-design collective composed of science graduate students and faculty, scientists working outside of academia, medical doctors and other community partners. The intended outcome of this effort is a larger pool of observations contributed from a greater diversity of locations and by a more diverse group of observers that will, in turn, yield a more robust dataset better suited for use in scientific discovery and documenting global change.

Check back soon for research projects.

Open and FAIR Samples: Maturing the Sample Data Ecosystem
PI: Natalie Raia (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $599,462
Project Dates: January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2028 (estimated)
Summary:
This project advances FAIR principles in the Earth and space science sample data ecosystem by promoting widespread adoption of persistent identifier (PID) infrastructure, ensuring that samples are uniquely identified, persistently linked to research outputs and properly cited in the scholarly record. Through analysis, coordination, education and community engagement across researchers, sample repositories, data repositories and publishers, the project aims to build a more integrated and sustainable open science infrastructure for sample-based research.

FAIROS RCN: Ethical Open Science for Past Global Change Data
PI: Andrea Thomer (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation, $246,097
Project Dates: January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2027 (estimated)
Website: eos-rcn.github.io/web/home
Summary:
In this Research Coordination Network (RCN), researchers aim to build technical and social capacity among community-curated data repositories in the quaternary sciences (e.g., paleoecology, archaeology, paleobiology). They are doing this by supporting technical implementation of ethical open science principles and developing communities of practice focused on FAIR principles.

S-STEM: Linking Student Assets to Student Success: Pathways to an Engineering Workforce for the Southwest 
PI: Vignesh Subbian (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Ann Shivers-McNair, Jim Baygents (The University of Arizona), Christina Baze (Northern Arizona University)
Funding: National Science Foundation / Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) Program, $2,497,206
Project Dates: 2024-2029
Website: ceero.arizona.edu/training-programs/ecaminos
Publications:
“$2.5M NSF-funded engineering program at U of A focuses on student strengths, not knowledge deficits,” UA News, 2024
“Legacy Graphs as Tools for Reflection and Formation of Engineering Identity,” American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), 2026 (forthcoming)
Summary:
The eCAMINOS program represents engineering pathways ("camino" means "path" in Spanish), and the grant funds need-based scholarships for students. The grant also supports research in the development of a model that systematically combines strengths-based mentoring with development of portfolios that showcase students’ skills, projects and achievements. The research aims to inspire change and to nurture more inclusive learning environments in engineering and in STEM and design education more broadly.