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1. Contamination Bias in Observational Research on Child Maltreatment: Prevalence, Impact, and Methodological Solutions for Improving the Accuracy of Causal Effects across Public Health Outcomes

   Shenk, CE (September 2025, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies)

   Contamination occurs in observational research on child maltreatment when individuals assigned to a comparison condition have, unbeknownst to investigators, been exposed to maltreatment. Contamination is a major threat because it biases the statistical significance and magnitude of maltreatment effects, leading to replication failures and an underestimation of the public health impacts of child maltreatment. Despite its presence, there are no established solutions for addressing contamination in child maltreatment research. This symposium brings together leading experts who will present cutting-edge research addressing a range of critical topics for detecting and correcting contamination in observational research on child maltreatment: 1) a conceptual foundation for what contamination is and how it occurs, 2) the prevalence of contamination across independent and international research, 3) the impact contamination has on the direction, statistical significance, and magnitude of maltreatment effects for a range of public health outcomes in nationally-representative and multi-wave designs, and 4) innovative methodological solutions for detecting and correcting contamination. This symposium will provide needed information for child maltreatment researchers to correct contamination in observational research and improve the accuracy, and therefore replicability, of casual effects across public health outcomes. A formal discussion and integration of results presented in this symposium will also aid trauma researchers at large, as contamination can occur in any observational research design. 

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2. Gaining the Competitive Edge in Proposal Submission to the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Program (NSF-ATE): Mentor-Connect

   Craft, Elaine L.; Wosczyna-Birch, Karen; Forrest, Charlotte B. (July 2017, ASEE annual conference)

   Securing external funding to improve or expand engineering technology and related programs is increasingly essential as state funding for two-year technical and community colleges plummets nationwide. Grants often provide the impetus and means for innovation that would not otherwise be possible. The National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) program has a unique focus on two-year colleges and technician education. However, the funding rate for the program recently declined to 22% and the proposal submission process is complex. NSF also has an agency-wide mission to encourage diverse populations to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Mentor-Connect: Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE Initiative project, NSF DUE #1204463 and #1501183 awarded to Florence-Darlington Technical College, Florence, South Carolina offers an efficient way for prospective principal investigators to learn effective proposal preparation strategies specific to this funding program and to receive cost-free assistance that helps them gain the competitive edge. Mentor-Connect also addresses NSF’s diversity goals. As a leadership development and outreach project for NSF-ATE, the project uses a three-pronged approach to support potential grantees. It offers mentoring, technical assistance, and digital resources. The project’s immediate goals are to help STEM faculty prepare competitive grant proposals and to improve their colleges’ institutional capacity for obtaining grants. Its long-term goal is to develop a new generation of STEM faculty leaders. Early evidence indicates that this project is increasing the geographic diversity of colleges submitting proposals to the NSF-ATE program. The 99 colleges in the first 5 project cohorts are from 31 different states. Each participating college is located in a geographic area where there has been either no previous NSF-ATE grant awards or none in the past 10 years. There is also evidence of improvements in the quality of NSF-ATE proposals as a result of this project. More than 89% of the 79 colleges in the first 4 cohorts of participating colleges submitted NSF-ATE grant proposals; 36 of them or 69% have been awarded grants of approximately $200,000 each. The average acceptance rate for colleges that have applied to participate in the project is 65%. This paper documents the project’s unique combination of strategies and the competitive edge that those strategies provide for prospective NSF ATE grantees. 

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3. Gaining the Competitive Edge in Proposal Submission to the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Program (NSF-ATE): Mentor-Connect

   Craft, Elaine L.; Wosczyna-Birch, Karen; Forrest, Charlotte B. (July 2017, ASEE annual conference)

   Securing external funding to improve or expand engineering technology and related programs is increasingly essential as state funding for two-year technical and community colleges plummets nationwide. Grants often provide the impetus and means for innovation that would not otherwise be possible. The National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) program has a unique focus on two-year colleges and technician education. However, the funding rate for the program recently declined to 22% and the proposal submission process is complex. NSF also has an agency-wide mission to encourage diverse populations to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Mentor-Connect: Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE Initiative project, NSF DUE #1204463 and #1501183 awarded to Florence-Darlington Technical College, Florence, South Carolina offers an efficient way for prospective principal investigators to learn effective proposal preparation strategies specific to this funding program and to receive cost-free assistance that helps them gain the competitive edge. Mentor-Connect also addresses NSF’s diversity goals. As a leadership development and outreach project for NSF-ATE, the project uses a three-pronged approach to support potential grantees. It offers mentoring, technical assistance, and digital resources. The project’s immediate goals are to help STEM faculty prepare competitive grant proposals and to improve their colleges’ institutional capacity for obtaining grants. Its long-term goal is to develop a new generation of STEM faculty leaders. Early evidence indicates that this project is increasing the geographic diversity of colleges submitting proposals to the NSF-ATE program. The 99 colleges in the first 5 project cohorts are from 31 different states. Each participating college is located in a geographic area where there has been either no previous NSF-ATE grant awards or none in the past 10 years. There is also evidence of improvements in the quality of NSF-ATE proposals as a result of this project. More than 89% of the 79 colleges in the first 4 cohorts of participating colleges submitted NSF-ATE grant proposals; 36 of them or 69% have been awarded grants of approximately $200,000 each. The average acceptance rate for colleges that have applied to participate in the project is 65%. This paper documents the project’s unique combination of strategies and the competitive edge that those strategies provide for prospective NSF ATE grantees. 

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4. Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology

   https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.202342  

   Rogers, Crystal D; Amemiya, Chris; Arur, Swathi; Babonis, Leslie; Barresi, Michael; Bartlett, Madelaine; Behringer, Richard; Benham-Pyle, Blair; Bergmann, Dominique; Blackman, Ben; et al (February 2024, Development)

   ABSTRACT The field of developmental biology has declined in prominence in recent decades, with off-shoots from the field becoming more fashionable and highly funded. This has created inequity in discovery and opportunity, partly due to the perception that the field is antiquated or not cutting edge. A ‘think tank’ of scientists from multiple developmental biology-related disciplines came together to define specific challenges in the field that may have inhibited innovation, and to provide tangible solutions to some of the issues facing developmental biology. The community suggestions include a call to the community to help ‘rebrand’ the field, alongside proposals for additional funding apparatuses, frameworks for interdisciplinary innovative collaborations, pedagogical access, improved science communication, increased diversity and inclusion, and equity of resources to provide maximal impact to the community. 

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5. RPPs: Love 'Em or Leave 'Em

   Bevan, Bronwyn; Henrick, Erin; McGee, Steven; Dettori, Lucia (April 2019, ISEE Xplore)

   For the last three years the CS for All initiative at the National Science Foundation has had a call for research-practice partnership (RPP) projects. The goal of the program is to advance both knowledge and practice in creating inclusive, responsive computer science/computational thinking programs for all K-12 youth. RPPs represent an approach to research that, by design, is both more equitable and more ethical because it leverages community stakeholder experiences and perspectives to inform research questions, methods, and meaning-making. RPPs are thus potentially powerful tools for equity-oriented initiatives such as CS for All. Beginning in December 2016, the Research + Practice Collaboratory, an NSF-funded initiative based at the University of Washington, has led ten RPP development workshops for CS for All, collectively serving over 700 members of the community. At these workshops we have collected data about how the community sees itself benefiting from the adoption of RPP approaches to the work. In this experience paper we describe what we have learned about the field’s interests with respect to adopting RPP approaches to the work. 

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