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1. Estimating and Mitigating the Congestion Effect of Curbside Pick-ups and Drop-Offs: A Causal Inference Approach

   https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2022.0195  

   Liu, Xiaohui; Qian, Sean; Teo, Hock-Hai; Ma, Wei (December 2023, Transportation Science)

   Curb space is one of the busiest areas in urban road networks. Especially in recent years, the rapid increase of ride-hailing trips and commercial deliveries has induced massive pick-ups/drop-offs (PUDOs), which occupy the limited curb space that was designed and built decades ago. These PUDOs could jam curbside utilization and disturb the mainline traffic flow, evidently leading to significant negative societal externalities. However, there is a lack of an analytical framework that rigorously quantifies and mitigates the congestion effect of PUDOs in the system view, particularly with little data support and involvement of confounding effects. To bridge this research gap, this paper develops a rigorous causal inference approach to estimate the congestion effect of PUDOs on general regional networks. A causal graph is set to represent the spatiotemporal relationship between PUDOs and traffic speed, and a double and separated machine learning (DSML) method is proposed to quantify how PUDOs affect traffic congestion. Additionally, a rerouting formulation is developed and solved to encourage passenger walking and traffic flow rerouting to achieve system optimization. Numerical experiments are conducted using real-world data in the Manhattan area. On average, 100 additional units of PUDOs in a region could reduce the traffic speed by 3.70 and 4.54 miles/hour (mph) on weekdays and weekends, respectively. Rerouting trips with PUDOs on curb space could respectively reduce the system-wide total travel time (TTT) by 2.44% and 2.12% in Midtown and Central Park on weekdays. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed framework. Funding: The work described in this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 52102385], grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Grants PolyU/25209221 and PolyU/15206322], a grant from the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University [Grant P0043552], and a grant from Hong Kong Polytechnic University [Grant P0033933]. S. Qian was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant [Grant CMMI-1931827]. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2022.0195 . 

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2. Applying Project Management Skills to NSF ATE-funded Grants: A roadmap to success for first-time grantees

   Craft, Elaine; Quinn, Buffy; Silver, Pamela (June 2024, Papers on Engineering Education Repository (PEER))

   The National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program is specifically designed to support workforce development that primarily takes place in technician education programs offered at two-year colleges across the nation. Even so, NSF grant funding is infrequently or never pursued by most two-year colleges even though there is a need for funding to support high-cost, high-impact STEM programs. Since two-year colleges are focused on teaching vs. research, securing grants is seldom, if ever, required or even recognized as important as part of tenure and promotion processes at these institutions. As a result, technical/STEM faculty members typically do not have prior grant experience, nor do they have experience in managing a grant-funded project using industry-standard techniques. Guiding new grantees in applying Project Management skills as they implement NSF ATE-funded grants for the first time holds promise for improving project outcomes, reducing the frustration of a steep learning curve for new PIs, and encouraging follow-on grant proposals to the ATE Program. The first two principles of project management, (1) set clear objectives from the start and (2) create a project plan, are required to receive a first grant from NSF. When a grant award is received, two-year college faculty are invariably faced with working grant-funded activities into their already heavily-scheduled work weeks. Knowing about and employing project management skills can make a positive difference in the experience one has as a PI responsible for grant implementation and outcomes. These skills can help prevent chaos as workloads and competing demands for their time increase. To help new PIs learn and use project management skills within the context of NSF expectations so that they may maximize project outcomes and position themselves for subsequent NSF funding. A new professional development opportunity, PI 101, is providing instruction, mentoring, and technical assistance during the first year of project implementation. Based on PI 101 pilot year experiences and research, this support is being strengthened to specifically include the other three principles of project management: (1) organize and manage resources, (2) assess risks and changes throughout the project, and (3) monitor progress and performance on a regular basis. Mentor-Connect Forward, funded by the NSF ATE Program, added a newly developed component that addresses the critical need for first-time grantees to have instruction and support during their first year of project implementation. This professional development opportunity, called PI 101, is being offered to first-time, two-year college PIs to develop skills and help them build confidence by learning to apply proven strategies that can improve project outcomes so that their initial NSF ATE-funded work will build a worthy foundation for future grant awards and associated program improvements and innovation in technician education. PI 101 provides a collegial cohort environment for new PIs as they address issues such as grants management, budgets, and reporting expectations. New PIs can also get answers and receive direction on communication, building internal and external relationships, and developing industry partnerships. An important component of PI 101 is the introduction of the principles of project management as they apply to grant management. The pilot cohort of PI 101 participants received NSF ATE awards in 2023. The impact on the people involved, project progress, and outcomes are being monitored to inform improvements to PI 101 and future research questions. This paper explores the challenges and lessons learned in assisting a cohort of 15 two-year colleges so that they may effectively incorporate principles of project management and other grantsmanship strategies as they implement their first NSF ATE projects. 

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3. Enhancing Global Ocean Science Networks: The Impact of SCOR’s Travel Grant Initiative

   https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2025.106  

   Twigg, Emily; Miloslavich, Patricia; Urban, Edward; Zitoun, Rebecca (January 2025, Oceanography)

   The capacity sharing approach of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) focuses on supporting opportunities for individual ocean scientists and students within SCOR’s portfolio of scientific activities and through targeted capacity development opportunities (Morrison et al., 2013; Urban and Seeyave, 2021; Miloslavich et al., 2022; Seeyave et al., 2025, in this issue). This article focuses on SCOR’s travel grant program that supports the attendance of early career researchers (ECRs) from developing countries at scientific events (see https://scor-int.org/work/capacity/travel-grants/ for a description and application). 

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4. Mentoring in the midst of teachHOUSTON: The Pandemic Chapter

   Craig, C.; Evans, P.; Stokes, D.; McAlister Shields, L.; Curtis, G.; Manuel, M. (April 2021, Annual meeting program American Educational Research Association)

   This paper is the third in a series of three manuscripts under review and in press that have to do with mentoring in the midst of teachHOUSTON, an innovative urban Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) teacher education program, which was developed to better meet the needs of underserved secondary students who mostly are of color. teachHOUSTON has been funded by several National Science Foundation (NSF) scholarship-awarding grants that additionally support program development. Each grant award has brought different iterations of mentoring to the surface, all of which are complementary. Our first paper (under review) demonstrates the multi-layered mentoring that takes place within the teachHOUSTON program. Our second manuscript, an in press chapter, focuses on generative mentoring; that is, the way that mentoring shoots out in all directions, with some of it being by teachHOUSTON design and other parts unspooling organically. In this paper, we dig more deeply into the relationships that developed and the interests shared between and among faculty, teachHOUSTONstudents (some being preservice teachers), teachers who are graduates of the program (teachHOUSTONalumni) and secondary school students who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the urban teacher education effort. This third mentoring paper is the “pandemic chapter” of the four-year study. Meetings, interviews and focus groups conducted on Zoom allowed us to map intricate connections between and among individuals participating in two grant programs: UH-LIFE and LEAD HOUSTON. In this work, we conceptualize chain mentoring as the formal and informal ways mentoring played out during the global pandemic in Houston, the fourth largest urban center in the U.S., which is the site where this narrative inquiry research took place. 

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5. SES Grants, 2000-2015

   https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QCA35O  

   Kaiser, Kendra; Braswell, Anna; Fork, Megan; Fork, Megan (January 2022, Harvard Dataverse)

   Information about grants funded by NSF to support SES research from 2000-2015. The grants included in this dataset are a subset that we identified as having an SES research focus from a set of grants accessed using the Dimensions platform (https://dimensions.ai). CSV file with 35 columns and names in header row: "Grant Searched" lists the granting NSF program (text); "Grant Searched 2" lists a secondary granting NSF program, if applicable (text); "Grant ID" is the ID from the Dimensions platform (string); "Grant Number" is the NSF Award number (integer); "Number of Papers (NSF)" is the count of publications listed under "PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH" in the NSF Award Search page for the grant (integer); "Number of Pubs Tracked" is the count of publications from "Number of Papers (NSF)" included in our analysis (integer); "Publication notes" are our notes about the publication information. We used "subset" to denote when a grant was associated with >10 publications and we used a random sample of 10 publications in our analysis (text); "Unique ID" is our unique identifier for each grant in the dataset (integer); "Collaborative/Cross Program" denotes whether the grant was submitted as part of a set of collaborative or cross-program proposals. In this case, all linked proposals are given the same unique identifier and treated together in the analysis. (text); "Title" is the title of the grant (text); "Title translated" is the title of the grant translated to English, where applicable (text); "Abstract" is the abstract of the grant (text); "Abstract translated" is the abstract of the grant translated to English, where applicable (text); "Funding Amount" is the numeric value of funding awarded to the grant (integer); "Currency" is the currency associated with the field "Funding Amount" (text); "Funding Amount in USD" is the numeric value of funding awarded to the grant expressed in US Dollars (integer); "Start Date" is the start date of the grant (mm/dd/yyyy); "Start Year" is the year in which grant funding began (year); "End Date" is the end date of the grant (mm/dd/yyyy); "End Year" is the year in which the term of the grant expired (year); "Researchers" lists the Principal Investigators on the grant in First Name Last Name format, separated by semi-colons (text); "Research Organization - original" gives the affiliation of the lead PI as listed in the grant (text); "Research Organization - standardized" gives the affiliation of each PI in the list, separated by semi-colons (text); "GRID ID" is a list of the unique identifier for each the Research Organization in the Global Research Identifier Database [https://grid.ac/?_ga=2.26738100.847204331.1643218575-1999717347.1643218575], separated by semi-colons (string); "Country of Research organization" is a list of the countries in which each Research Organization is located, separated by semi-colons (text); "Funder" gives the NSF Directorate that funded the grant (text); "Source Linkout" is a link to the NSF Award Search page with information about the grant (URL); "Dimensions URL" is a link to information about the grant in Dimensions (URL); "FOR (ANZSRC) Categories" is a list of Field of Research categories [from the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) system] associated with each grant, separated by semi-colons (string); "FOR [1-5]" give the FOR categories separated. "NOTES" provide any other notes added by the authors of this dataset during our processing of these data. 

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