In this program, the Foundation makes grants to encourage playwrights and theater companies to write and produce new plays about scientists, engineers and mathematicians that will break down the barrier between "the two cultures." The Foundation's major partners include: The Ensemble Studio Theatre The Manhattan Theatre Club Playwrights Horizons The Foundation has been a leading force in commissioning and producing new science and technology plays. In this role, it has helped to stimulate numerous playwrights to tackle these subjects while also creating a more hospitable environment among the theater-going public for such fare, heralding an important cultural shift. Program Director: Doron Weber Bio Apply Spotlight Isaac's Eye , a play about a young Isaac Newton and his nemesis Robert Hooke, premiered at Ensemble Studio Theatre's Mainstage. more Headlines Victorian England is Comic Gold in "The Explorer's Club" New York Post "Explorer's Club" a "Hijinks-Happy" Romp New York Daily News Jennifer Westfeldt Charms in "Explorer's Club" Bloomberg Talkin' Broadway Reviews "Explorer's Club" at MTC Talkin' Broadway Time Out NY Reviews "The Explorer's Club" Time Out New York Program Updates March 2013 June 2013 Public Understanding Sub Programs Books Film Radio Television New Media
Public Television The Foundation is a major supporter of public television documentaries, docudramas and dramas about science, technology and the lives of the men and women involved in scientific and technological pursuit. Foundation-supported shows highlight the role of engineering and technology in society or broaden our view of the nation’s history and of the central role of science and technology in the country’s narrative. Some programs celebrate scientific and technological breakthroughs and milestones, while others reveal just how little we know, and how far we still have to go. The Foundation has a longtime interest in the underappreciated role of women and minorities in science and technology. The Foundation also supports television programs based on projects it has sponsored in other media, such as books and plays. Commercial Television The Foundation also continues to develop various film projects with cable and broadcast networks. Program Director: Doron Weber Bio Apply Spotlight Check out American Experience's newest Sloan-supported episode Silicon Valley more Headlines James Cameron Honored by National Geographic for Deepsea Challenger Expedition National Geographic Links Making Sen$e Minds on the Edge NOVA: Hunting the Edge of Space American Experience Program Updates March 2013 June 2013 Public Understanding Sub Programs Books Film Radio Theater New Media
Grantmaking in this program aims to improve the quality of higher education in STEM fields through the support of original, high-quality research on the factors affecting undergraduate and graduate student learning and retention in STEM fields. Grants primarily support consortia of colleges, universities, and other educational institutions with plans to develop and to study the impact and effectiveness of new approaches to STEM pedagogy, especially in “gateway” courses, with an explicit commitment to institutionalize successful initiatives.. Successful proposals are expected to be hypothesis-driven, sensitive to the heterogeneity of STEM disciplines, attentive to differences in student motivations to choose STEM majors and persist in STEM careers, and concerned with the dissemination and portability of results to other institutions. Program Director: Elizabeth Boylan Bio Apply Headlines UW Researcher to Study Why Students Drop Out of Sciences Wisconsin State Journal Studying Why Some Shy Away from Math and Science Wisconsin Public Radio Study Looks at Why Students Leave STEM Majors University of Wisconsin - Madison
Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and women are underrepresented among M.S. and Ph.D. recipients in the natural sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics, a trend that continues throughout the academic pipeline–from starting assistant professors to senior academic administrators. Grantmaking in this Foundation program aims to increase the diversity of higher education in STEM fields through college and university initiatives to support the education and professional advancement of high-quality scholars from underrepresented groups. Grantmaking is divided into three subprograms. In the Sloan Minority Ph.D. program (MPHD), the Foundation partners with select faculty, departments, and universities with proven track records of successfully recruiting and graduating minority Ph.D. candidates in STEM fields. Funds provide fellowships to minority students, allowing successful degree programs to enroll, train, and eventually graduate more students than would otherwise be possible. In the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership (SIGP) , the Foundation provides fellowships and administrative funds to four regional centers that foster supportive, interconnected communities devoted to successfully training Native American and Native Alaskan graduate students in STEM Master’s and Ph.D. programs. In the Leadership Diversity program , the Foundation supports college and university efforts to promote the effective professional development of women and minority faculty for positions of academic leadership. The MPHD and SIGP programs are administered by longtime Foundation partner, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), which receives applications, selects students for scholarships, administers awards, and supports recruitment efforts by participating faculty. This program does not make grants to support projects in public or private schools at the pre-college level. Program Director: Elizabeth Boylan Bio Apply Links Minority Ph.D. Program Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) program is expanding our understanding of the evolution and structure of the universe by providing the largest uniform, detailed archive of objects in the skies that has ever existed. In cooperation with the Astrophysical Research Consortium, the Foundation has helped build and operate a specially designed telescope to observe and archive galaxies, quasars and other cosmological phenomena. Data collected through the SDSS is providing an increasingly detailed picture of the universe, including data bearing on the curvature of the universe itself, on the existence of dark energy, and on the features of the Milky Way. Program Director: Gail Pesyna Bio Visit the SDSS Apply Headlines How Astronomical Surveys are Pinpointing Our Place in the Universe PBS NewsHour / Scientific American VIDEO: A Flight Through the Universe, Courtesy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey YouTube
The goal of Sloan’s Synthetic Biology initiative is to identify the risks associated with research in and applications of synthetic biology and to assess the ethical, regulatory, and public policy implications of these risks. Grantmaking aims to educate scientists, policy makers, journalists and the public about synthetic biology, improve biosecurity and biosafety within the field, lay groundwork to address issues in regulation and governance, and help develop a cadre of scholars and practitioners to evaluate the ethical, social, and public policy consequences of synthetic biology research. Recent grantmaking in this program has focused on informing key audiences about synthetic biology. A grant to The Hastings Center aims to engage the ethical community to identify and articulate ethical issues associated with synthetic biology research and provide a basis for informed policy discussion. A Sloan-funded project at the J. Craig Venter Institute is educating the scientific community about societal concerns regarding synthetic biology and educating the policy and journalism communities about the science underlying synthetic biology research. A grant to the Woodrow Wilson International Center aims to identify risks associated with synthetic biology, evaluate the adequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, and educate policy makers and the public through events and through its website, www.synbioproject.org . The Foundation has been working in synthetic biology since 2005. Initial grants included a Foundation-sponsored report by the J. Craig Venter Institute, “ Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance ”, as well as support for discussion of the societal implications of synthetic biology at the past three international synthetic biology meetings: S.B 2.0 (UC Berkeley) S.B 3.0 (Zurich) and S.B 4.0 (Hong Kong). This program does not support laboratory research in synthetic biology. Program Director: Paula Olsiewski Bio Spotlight Watch bioethicist and Hastings Center President Thomas H. Murray's testimony to the President's Commission on Bioethics more Spotlight Presidential Commission on Bioethics releases report on the ethics of synthetic biology more Headlines How Synthetic Biology Will Change Us NBC News Book Review: "Regenesis" by Church and Regis Kirkus Reviews Genes in Your Email? Why Not? NBC News Links Read the Presidential Commission on Biothethics Report on the Ethics of Synthetic Biology The Synbio Project at the W. Wilson Center Hastings Center Synthetic Biology Page Venter Institute Paper on Governance Option for Synthetic Bio Wilson Center Launches Scorecard to Help Implement Synthetic Bio Recommendation
This new program aims to revolutionize our understanding of the location and behavior of all carbon on Earth. Through an international network of laboratories across a number of scientific disciplines, the Deep Carbon Observatory will look at the role of carbon in numerous processes; including the origin of life on this planet, the chemical composition of the Earth’s core, and the distribution and deposition of fossil fuels. A three-year 2009 grant to the Carnegie Institution of Washington supported the initial phase of the program, which focused on developing instruments to meet the severe technical challenges associated with probing the Earth's deep interior, and on building an organizational infrastructure to set strategic priorities, engage a network of researchers, and secure funding commitments from institutional partners. The project is projected to run until 2019. Visit the Deep Carbon Observatory Web site Headlines Scientists Uncover Link Between Lavas Erupting on Sea Floor and Deep Carbon Cycle RedOrbit Lava Hints at Earth's Deep Carbon Cycle Live Science How Deep Carbon Could Pop Up on Earth's Surface Futurity Microbes Below Earth's Surface Could Be Potential Link to Mars Rover Discovery Public Radio International Computer Models Show How Deep Carbon Could Return to Earth's Surface Science Daily
People average 23 hours a day indoors where we breathe and come in contact with trillions of microorganisms—tiny life forms invisible to the naked eye. Human beings ourselves are composted of ten times as many microbial cells as human cells and we are constantly shedding, acquiring and indeed sharing microbes. Historically environmental research and policy have focused on natural or urban outdoor environments. Little is known about the complex microbial ecosystems found in the built environment. The goal of the Microbiology of the Built Environment program is to grow a new field of scientific inquiry. Over the next five years, Sloan's objectives are as follows: To push the research frontier including the development of standardized techniques and protocols, and to educate a small leadership cohort through a multidisciplinary university-based Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon , led by Jessica Green, Brendan Bohannan, and Charlie Brown. To build a national, multidisciplinary community by establishing a network of scientists, engineers, and architects working on these issues through the Microbiology of the Built Environment Network at the University of California, Davis, led by Jonathan Eisen. To improve the cohesiveness of the community and its ability to communicate internally and externally by developing data visualization and imaging techniques and repositories through a consortium of four institutions: University of Chicago (Folker Meyer), Marine Biological Laboratory(Mitch Sogin), University of Colorado(Rob Knight), and University of California, Riverside(Jason Stajich). To demonstrate the excitement and value of the field by supporting a small number of research targets of opportunity. Read the RFP for the Postdoctoral Fellowship program. To convince traditional U.S. government funding agencies to include research on the built environment in their research plans by developing a compelling, widely accepted research agenda. For a complete list of Sloan grants in this program area, see www.microbe.net/grantees . Program Director: Paula Olsiewski Bio Apply Spotlight These two-year, $120K fellowships support the work of promising postdoctoral researchers and engineers who are studying the microbiology of built environments. Read the RFP. Headlines Your Skin Can Reveal How Much You Love Dogs Counsel & Heal Q&A: Jessica Green, Biodiversity Scientist, on the Microbial Ecosystems in Our Buildings SmartPlanet Mapping the Great Indoors New York Times Next To You On The Subway New York Times Study: Subway Air Is No Worse Than Crowded Street Air CBS New York Links MoBE Journal Articles Biology and the Built Environment Center at the U. of Oregon Microbiomes of the Built Environment Data Analysis Core Microbiology of the Built Environment Network Read the microBEnet blog Visualization and Analysis of Microbial Population Structures (VAMPS)
The goal of this program is to help build a reliable online encyclopedia with a Web page for each of the named 1.8 million species of plants, animals, and fungi. A $2.5 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation along with a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation initiated the project in 2007. Over 30,000 pages of the Encyclopedia were released early in 2008 and the site has since grown to include more than 200,000 authenticated species-pages. Content is being generated via the Biodiversity Heritage Library (a consortium of ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions), other Web-based resources, and by professional and citizen scientists. Wikipedia-style, people worldwide are invited to contribute text, video, images, and other information about a species and have it incorporated, upon review, into the authenticated pages. A 2009 three-year grant supports the EOL’s efforts to expand its worldwide institutional base of participants and its movement toward achieving self-sufficiency by 2012 when Foundation support will end. Program Director: Gail M. Pesyna Bio Visit the EOL Apply Spotlight Listen to the EOL podcast, One Species at a Time , hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro. more Links Partners Sign up for the EOL Newsletter Read the 2010 EOL Online Brochure
This program, started in 2002, aims to speed the building and use of a library of short DNA sequences (barcodes) to identify animal and plant species reliably and inexpensively. Foundation grantmaking has supported the selection of gene regions for use in identification and the networking of stakeholder institutions in the field, which include museums and herbaria that have collections of specimens, laboratories that perform analyses, and regulatory agencies concerned, for example, about the accuracy of food labeling. The Consortium for the Barcode of Life, based at the Smithsonian Institution, includes over 170 member organizations from 50 countries. Barcodes of over 850,000 specimens from over 70,000 species have been accumulated with plans to extend the barcode library to 500,000 species over the next five years. Grantmaking for 2010 will focus on supporting the Consortium as it shifts to financial reliance on government agencies concerned both with basic science and with consumer and environmental protection. Program Director: Gail M. Pesyna Bio Visit the BoL Apply Headlines Can DNA Barcoding Really Save Endangered Fish? Canadian Technology Fights Misleading Food Labelling World Center for DNA Barcoding, Biodiversity Genomics Opens in Guelph Guelph Now University of Guelph Opens Second Facility for Barcode of Life Guelph Mercury Links Read the Barcode of Life Newsletter Visit the NYC Urban Barcode Project
