Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced today that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a total of $1,090,552 to the University of Maine to support four research projects.

“Institutions across Maine help inspire and prepare students to become the next generation of leaders in their respective fields,” Senators Collins and King said in joint statement. “By supporting research efforts at the University of Maine, these grants will empower students and researchers working to promote STEM education and improve our understanding of the Earth’s interconnected processes.”

The grants will fund the following four projects:

• $154,910 for a project titled, “Collaborative Research: Promoting instructional change in introductory STEM courses through Faculty Learning Communities focused on the transition from high school to college,” which will create Faculty Learning Communities that seek to implement practices that reduce the high levels of attrition among first and second year STEM students.

• $295,929 for a project titled, “Dynamic fragmentation and inelastic energy partitioning at the base of the seismogenic zone,” which seeks to better understand the way in which energy is released from earthquakes in areas that experience regular seismic activity.

• $341,444 for a project titled, “Sulfur Isotopes in Subduction Systems and the Global Sulfur Cycle,” which seeks to address the knowledge gap in the sulfur cycle by directly examining sulfur-bearing minerals in rocks from ancient subducted plates and deep arc volcanic systems.

• $298,269 to enable the University to acquire a mass spectrometer for geoscientists to investigate Earth system processes, such as crustal subduction and paleoclimate.

The NSF supports research, innovation, and discovery in order to provide a foundation for economic growth in America. Founded in 1950 by an act of Congress, the NSF is an independent federal agency that works to advance the frontiers of science and engineering so that our nation can develop the knowledge and cutting edge technologies needed to address current and future challenges.