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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. 

One of the greatest threats facing the planet is the continued increase in excess greenhouse gasses, with CO2 being the primary driver due to its rapid increase in only a century. Excess CO2 is exacerbating known climate tipping points that will have cascading local and global effects including loss of biodiversity, global warming, and climate migration. However, global reduction of CO2 emissions is not enough. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will also be needed to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming. Although the drawdown and storage of CO2 occur naturally via the coupling of the silicate and carbonate cycles, they operate over geological timescales (thousands of years). Here, we suggest that microbes can be used to accelerate this process, perhaps by orders of magnitude, while simultaneously producing potentially valuable by-products. This could provide both a sustainable pathway for global drawdown of CO2 and an environmentally benign biosynthesis of materials. We discuss several different approaches, all of which involve enhancing the rate of silicate weathering. We use the silicate mineral olivine as a case study because of its favorable weathering properties, global abundance, and growing interest in CDR applications. Extensive research is needed to determine both the upper limit of the rate of silicate dissolution and its potential to economically scale to draw down significant amounts (Mt/Gt) of CO2. Other industrial processes have successfully cultivated microbial consortia to provide valuable services at scale (e.g., wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion, fermentation), and we argue that similar economies of scale could be achieved from this research. 

Many organisms can survive extreme conditions and successfully recover to normal life. This extremotolerant behavior has been attributed in part to repetitive, amphipathic, and intrinsically disordered proteins that are upregulated in the protected state. Here, we assemble a library of approximately 300 naturally-occurring and designed extremotolerance-associated proteins to assess their ability to protect human cells from chemically-induced apoptosis. We show that several proteins from tardigrades, nematodes, and the Chinese giant salamander are apoptosis protective. Notably, we identify a region of the human ApoE protein with similarity to extremotolerance-associated proteins that also protects against apoptosis. This region mirrors the phase separation behavior seen with such proteins, like the tardigrade protein CAHS2. Moreover, we identify a synthetic protein, DHR81, that shares this combination of elevated phase separation propensity and apoptosis protection. Finally, we demonstrate that driving protective proteins into the condensate state increases apoptosis protection, and highlight the ability for DHR81 condensates to sequester caspase-7. Taken together, this work draws a link between extremotolerance-associated proteins, condensate formation, and designing human cellular protection.