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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

ReclaimingSTEM: A healing-centered counterspace model for inclusive science communication and policy training

The dominant U.S. cultural norms shape science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and in turn, these norms shape science communication, further perpetuating oppressive systems. Despite being a core scientific skill, science communication research and practice lack inclusive training spaces that center marginalized identities. We address this need with a healing-centered counterspace grounded in the key principles of inclusive science communication: ReclaimingSTEM. ReclaimingSTEM is a science communication and science policy training space that centers the experiences, needs, and wants of people from marginalized communities. ReclaimingSTEM problematizes and expands the definitions of “what counts” as science communication. We organize ReclaimingSTEM with intentionality, emphasizing inclusion at every part of the process. Since initiating in 2018, five ReclaimingSTEM workshops have been held in multiple locations, both in-person and virtually, reaching more than 700 participants from all over the globe. In this paper, we share our model for ReclaimingSTEM, reflections of workshop participants and speakers, barriers faced during organizing, and recommendations for creating truly inclusive practices in science communication spaces.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2021

News and Notes: SSA Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Toward a Changing, Inclusive Future in Earthquake Science

In the United States, a wide variety of studies show that the geoscience community does not reflect the broader societal makeup (e.g., Velasco and Jaurrieta de Velasco, 2010; Dutt, 2020; Howley, 2020). In fact, only about 10% of all Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) Ph.D. degrees are awarded to people of color, although they represent more than a third of the population (Dutt, 2020). These numbers have changed little over the past 40 years (e.g., Bernard and Cooperdock, 2018; Dutt, 2020). Recent events in the United States have again raised awareness of this discrepancy in many fields; similar divergences may be present throughout the world. How this discrepancy represents a tremendous loss of talent and contributes to ongoing bias and racism is discussed.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Conducting more inclusive solar geoengineering research: A feminist science framework

Solar geoengineering, or deliberate climate modification, has been receiving increased attention in recent years. Given the far-reaching consequences of any potential solar geoengineering deployments, it is prudent to identify inherent biases, blind spots, and other potential issues at all stages of the research process. Here we articulate a feminist science-based framework to concretely describe how solar geoengineering researchers can be more inclusive of different perspectives and potentially contradictory conclusions, in the process illuminating potential implicit bias and enhancing the conclusions that can be gained from their studies. Importantly, this framework is an adoptable method of practice that can be refined, with the aim of conducting better research in solar geoengineering. As an illustration, we retrospectively apply this framework to a well-read solar geoengineering study (also led by the first author of this study), improving transparency by revealing its implicit values, conclusions made from its evidence base, and the methodologies that study pursues. We conclude here with a set of recommendations for the geoengineering research community whereby more inclusive research can become a regular part of practice. Throughout this process, we illustrate how feminist science scholars can use this approach to study climate modeling.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Solving the puzzle of Fe homeostasis by integrating molecular, mathematical, and societal models

To ensure optimal utilization and bioavailability, iron uptake, transport, subcellular localization, and assimilation are tightly regulated in plants. In this work, we examine recent advances in our understanding of cellular responses to Fe deficiency. We then use intracellular mechanisms of Fe homeostasis to discuss how formalizing cell biology knowledge via a mathematical model can advance discovery even when quantitative data is limited. Using simulation-based inference to identify plausible systems mechanisms that conform to known emergent phenotypes can yield novel, testable hypotheses to guide targeted experiments. However, this approach relies on the accurate encoding of domain-expert knowledge in exploratory mathematical models. We argue that this would be facilitated by fostering more “systems thinking” life scientists and that diversifying your research team may be a practical path to achieve that goal.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Strategies in Education, Outreach, and Inclusion to Enhance the US Workforce in Accelerator Science and Engineering

We summarize the community-based consensus for improvements concerning education, public outreach, and inclusion in Accelerator Science and Engineering that will enhance the workforce in the USA. The improvements identified reflect the product of discussions held within the 2021-2022 Snowmass community planning process by topical group AF1: Beam Physics and Accelerator Education within the Accelerator Frontier. Although the Snowmass process centers on high-energy physics, this document outlines required improvements for the entire U.S. accelerator science and engineering enterprise because education of those entering and in the field, outreach to the public, and inclusion are inextricably linked.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Engaging a Diverse Workforce in the Building Sciences Through the JUMP Into STEM Program: Impact Study; Preprint

Ensuring inclusivity in building science professions requires engaging people from underrepresented demographics; unfortunately, many races, ethnicities, and genders continue to be underrepresented. The JUMP into STEM program works to rectify this, encouraging creative ideation and highlighting the unique perspectives of a diverse array of students. The top students are awarded internships that provide opportunities to work in building science research with close supervision from mentors in the field. In the research presented here, we investigate the impact of participation in JUMP into STEM on students' careers, including the impact on students from diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, we research students' awareness of career opportunities in building science, students' perception of their ability to meaningfully contribute to this field, and the career building opportunities that JUMP into STEM provides for students. Through participant interviews and data analysis, we measure program diversity, inclusion, and effectiveness at achieving goals. We find that among the hundreds of students who have participated in this program, more than 25 different majors and/or educational degree programs are represented and more than 45% of students attend minority serving institutions or historically black colleges and universities. The JUMP into STEM experience had a significant effect on career choices or career development for more than 80% of participants. Our results also indicate that the JUMP into STEM program is effective at promoting diversity in the building sciences and is successfully contributing to the larger effort within the building science industry to promote and ensure equity in technological progress and innovation.

building energy science↗
DOE OSTI2021

Expert Text Analysis in the Inclusion of History and Philosophy of Science in Higher Education

The history and philosophy of science (HPS) plays a special role in education. An elective HPS course onthe philosophy of scientific experimentation for young scientists and graduate students of natural scienceis presented. The course bears a pragmatic character, and its main aims include the development of criticalthinking (CT), familiarization with philosophical problems in the relevant areas of knowledge, and thecultivation of a taste for reflective, critical analysis, both individual and group-based, which contributes todeeper understanding of the features of scientific practice in the context of modern complex groupcooperation. Students are offered a classical HPS program that included debates on the relationship betweenempiricism and rationalism, the role of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, modern topics associated withthe practical success of rationalism in the emergence of modern natural science, and the theory-ladennessof experimentation. Particular attention during the course is paid to the problems of megascience, theinclusion of which is justified by the specifics of the students’ engagement with science, technology,engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Emphasis is placed on the structure and typology of the collectivesubject in the modern educational process as well as in experimental practice. Lessons on the methodologyof expert text analysis (META), which are aimed at the development of critical thinking skills and thecreation of an interdisciplinary discussion space, are included in the course and relied on the example ofthe history and philosophy of high energy physics to motivate professional reflection. META classesincluded in the course prepare graduate students for teamwork in big science, proto-megascience, andmegascience. The course offers practical recommendations that could be applied to students’ own researchand could be useful for practitioners.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

The 2024 “Hacking Limnology” Workshop Series and Virtual Summit: Increasing Inclusion, Participation, and Representation in the Aquatic Sciences

The 4th Aquatic Ecosystem MOdeling Network—Junior (AEMON-J) Hacking Limnology Workshop and 5th Virtual Summit: Incorporating Data Science and Open Science in the Aquatic Sciences (DSOS) convened 15–19 July 2024. During the week, these joint communities engaged in activities at the intersection of big data, open science, modeling, remote sensing, and the aquatic sciences. The weeklong event, with over 100 aquatic science practitioners and enthusiasts, followed a similar structure to previous years, comprising three days of workshops followed by two days of the virtual summit.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Curated Experimental Compilation Analyzed by Theory Is More than a Review

Macromolecules is an exceptional resource in the field of polymer science and now publishes more than 1000 original articles a year that set the standard for scientific rigor and creative insights. Over the years, these individual contributions have combined to build the foundation of polymer science, broadly and inclusively defined. In addition to the individual articles, many of which are being celebrated in this series of editorials, Macromolecules has published invaluable reviews and perspectives. These scholarly contributions integrate the insights and results from numerous sources into a unified whole and often recommend future directions for the field. Novices and experts alike benefit from these works that capture topics from emerging discoveries to long-pondered topics and everything in between. To explore the importance of Macromolecules’ reviews and perspectives, we considered their influence on the field and found the 1994 review by Fetters et al. entitled “Connection between Polymer Molecular Weight, Density, Chain Dimensions, and Melt Viscoelastic Properties”1 to be a singularity. This review expertly curates and compiles a trove of data to build robust correlations between molecular characteristics and macroscopic viscoelastic properties of polymer melts, in the context of the tube model of entanglements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Building a Diverse and Inclusive HPC Community for Mission-Driven Team Science

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been a long-standing leader in driving advances in science and technology through advanced computing. However, DOE laboratories are currently facing urgent workforce challenges, particularly in terms of underrepresentation from key communities, including people of color, women, persons with disabilities, and first-generation scholars. This paper introduces the work carried out as part of the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) Broadening Participation Initiative, which aims to address workforce challenges through a lens that considers the distinct needs and culture of high-performance computing (HPC). The work focuses on three main efforts: hosting Intro to HPC Bootcamps, expanding the Sustainable Research Pathways (SRP) internship and workforce development program, and establishing an HPC Workforce Development and Retention Action Group. Finally, the paper also highlights various workforce efforts throughout the computational science community and explores opportunities for future work aimed at broadening participation in HPC.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Earth and Planetary Surface Processes Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science

This article provides a commentary about the state of integrated, coordinated, open, and networked (ICON) principles in Earth and Planetary Surface Processes and discussion on the opportunities and challenges of adopting them. Further, this commentary focuses on the challenges with current inclusive, equitable, and accessible science and highlights how research undertaken in the earth and planetary surface processes community currently benefit from and would be able to grow as a discipline with more directed implementation of ICON principles.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

The importance of recruitment and retention in Heliophysics: it’s not just a pipeline problem

A major obstacle in cultivating a robust Heliophysics (and broader scientific) community is the lack of diversity throughout science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. For many years, this has been understood as a “leaky pipeline” analogy, in which predominately minority students initially interested in STEM gradually fall (or are pushed) out of the field on their way to a scientific research position. However, this ignores critical structural and policy issues which drive even later career Ph.D.s out of a career in Heliophysics. We identify here several systemic problems that inhibit many from participating fully in the Heliophysics community, including soft money pressure, lack of accessibility and equity, power imbalances, lack of accountability, friction in collaboration, and difficulties in forming mentorship bonds. We present several recommendations to empower research-supporting organizations to help create a culture of inclusion, openness, and innovative science.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Back-Stress and Its Evolution during Primary Creep in Particle Strengthened Nickel Superalloys

According to Eshelby’s theory, inelastically inhomogeneous inclusions in a metallic matrix give rise to a distribution of internal stresses. In the case of particle strengthened materials, such as nickel base superalloys, the presence and evolution of this back-stress leads to various observable effects, such as primary creep, back-flow upon loading, and memory of prior deformation. This article presents the background of the concept of back-stress and how it applies to the scenario of creep. A derivation of an evolution equation for back-stress in the context of primary creep is also presented. The results from neutron diffraction with in-situ creep experiments on directionally solidified nickel superalloys are presented in order to demonstrate the validity of the proposed equation and the corollaries derived therefrom.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Toward equitable environmental exposure modeling through convergence of data, open, and citizen sciences: an example of air pollution exposure modeling amidst increasing wildfire smoke

Exposure modeling is critical in environmental epidemiology and human health but may face challenges (e.g., skewed data, unequal error, context-insensitive validation, and computational demands). Modeling decisions reflect the intended use of the models and the values that modelers prioritize. We aimed to provide a conceptual framework and machine learning (ML) modeling protocols that address these issues. With 500m-gridded hourly PM 2.5 and O 3 levels in Illinois before, during, and after the 2023 Canadian wildfire season as a motivating example, we conducted modeling experiments to evaluate modeling methods, guided by three domains we propose based on theories of science: 1) Data Diversity, leveraging open and citizen science data to enhance inclusivity, parsimony, and representativeness; 2) Equitable Accuracy, ensuring fairly distributed uncertainties across subpopulations; and 3) Sustainable Modeling, balancing accuracy with reducing computational demands to promote accessibility for under-resourced researchers. Here, we found that ML with publicly available data can achieve high accuracy. Depending on methods, performance may vary substantially, even with identical input data. Large but skewed data may reduce performance. Misuse of cross-validation protocols can underestimate prediction error; although we observed R 2 s of ∼98 %, the modeled estimates varied significantly, indicating the need for careful model validation. By using new modeling protocols including representativeness-considered training and validation data and a new loss function, we achieved high agreement between estimates and ground-based measurements (e.g., R 2 = ∼90 % for PM 2.5 ; ∼80 % for O 3 ), equally distributed errors across sociodemographic strata and urban–rural divides, and reduction in computation time—from several weeks or months to a few days.

Exposure assessment↗
DOE OSTI2026

RDPP: Accelerating Diversity in DOE Climate Science and Resilience Research (Final Report)

The scope of the project was set out to accelerate the inclusion of diversity into the Department of Energy (DOE) Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD) relevant climate science and resilience research to inclusively advance solutions. The Project Objectives were to usher in equitable use-inspired climate-related research with underrepresented Minorities of which this project helped fund 7 HU graduate students work with the DOE (three of which will graduate in Spring 2025). The two key aims underpinning that core goal were AIM1: developing partnerships (18 organized engaged, see partners list) and AIM2: Developing capabilities (3 visits to DOE facilities, 5 DOE partners visits to HU, increased visiting faculty participation in BNL-DOE lab, secured 5 grants together totaling 1.2 million in funds for HU). The project objectives were highly successful as they were designed to ambitiously pull together DOE lab researchers with the long-standing and successful transdisciplinary climate science research programs of the PI and local DC groups. The major outcomes of this RDPP program will be in the new fundamentally inclusive partnerships with DOE and HU tasked to understand the urban-rural impacts due to climate change in the US, Eastern South Atlantic (ESA) Region, related to energy issues driven by heat stress and the water cycle. Overall, this project contributes to the DOE and science community vision for catalyze connections for project-ready underrepresented minorities (URMs) at a prominent HBCU to DOE projects supported by the Biological and Environmental research (BER) Program; particularly, the Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗