Funding

Grants & Contracts

2025

  • National Science Foundation (NSF) – CREST – Co-PI, CREST Phase I Center for Ultrawide Bandgap Semiconductor Device Materials, Sep. 1, 2025 – Aug. 31, 2030, Amount: $7,500,000.00
  • Army Research Office – Co-PI, Integration of Diamond with Ultrawide Bandgap Oxides: Growth, Characterization, and Modeling with Artificial Intelligence, July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2029, Amount: $1,000,000.00
  • TXST FY25 Research Enhancement Program (REP) – Co-PI, Development of Pulsed Laser Annealing for Enhanced Doping and Phase Purity in Synthetic Diamonds for Advanced Electronic and Energy Applications, February 1, 2025- May 31, 2026, Amount: $16,000.00
  • NSF-REU – PI, REU Site: Undergraduate Research Experiences in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Mixed Reality for Smart and Connected Health, April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2028, Amount: $371,758.00

2024

  • TXST Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) – New Ventures – PI/CEO, Firefly Robotics – Fireproofing autonomous robots and drones for fire emergencies, Sept. 1, 2024 – Aug. 31, 2025, Amount: $20,000.00
  • Sertainty/TXST-CIEDAR – PI, Sertainty UXP Technology Implementation in the Context of IoT and LoRaWAN Gateway Constructs, Jun. 1, 2024 – May 31, 2025, Amount: $30,000.00
  • Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) – SME, Advanced Air Mobility (AMM), Jan. 1, 2024 – Mar. 31, 2025, Amount: $400,000.00
  • NSF-S-STEM – Co-PI, Scholars of Excellence in Engineering Design (SEED), Jan. 1, 2024 – Dec. 31, 2029, Amount: $2,499,310.00
  • NSF-ExpandAI – Co-PI, CAP: Expanding AI Curriculum and Infrastructure at Texas State University to Advance Interdisciplinary Research and Grow a Diverse AI Workforce, Jan. 1, 2024 – Dec. 31, 2026, Amount: $400,000.00

2023

  • United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) – National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) – PD, AnimalCareBot: Bridging the Gap between Emerging Technologies for Livestock Production and Education in Agricultural Sciences, September 15, 2023 – September 14, 2027, Amount: $399,720.00
  • FY23 Translational Health Research Center – PI, Smart City Firefighting: Autonomous Data Collection and Machine Learning for Improved Response, September 1, 2023 – August 31, 2024, Amount: $102,049.00

2022

  • NSF I-Corps – Co-PI, Nurture Neurodiversity – Development of an app that aids people with ASD in having socially appropriate interactions by identifying the emotion of their conversational partner, September 1, 2022 – January 31, 2024, Amount: $50,000.00
  • Dell Technologies/NVIDIA – PI, MOU, Human Detection Using IR, and Scream DL Classifiers and Prototype Development of Autonomous Vehicle Units for Smart Firefighting, May 1, 2022 – Sept. 1, 2022, Amount: $24,976.00
  • NSF-STTR – TXST Co-PI, STTR Phase I: Real-Time Mineral Data Collection and Identification Module with Stratajam, LLC, Apr. 15, 2022 – Sep. 30, 2022, Amount: $256,000.00
  • Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board – Supporting Personnel, The Accelerating Credentials of Purpose and Value for the Texas Innovation Corridor (TIC) Consortium Grant with Sam Houston State University, Jan. 15 – October 31, 2022, Amount: $1,445,000.00
  • NSF-REU – PI, Undergraduate Research Experiences in Machine Learning, Analytics, and Augmented Reality for Smart and Connected Health, January 15, 2022 – December 31, 2024, Amount: $350,429.00
  • FY22 Research Enhancement Program – Co-PI, Emotion Validation Database, January 1, 2022 – May 31, 2023, Amount: $10,894.00

2021

  • Dell Technologies/NVIDIA – PI, GIK-MOU, Data Science Workstation (DSW) Hardware Benchmarking Performance Analysis Study Using Machine Learning Models, January 2021 – December 2021, Amount: $72,600.00
  • Jacobs JETS – Co-PI, Engineering & Technical Support for AstroMaterials Curation, January 1, 2021- Dec. 31, 2022, Amount: $200,700.00

2020

  • AMD – Co-PI, Small-scale GPU option in-kind equipment, and Penguin-on-Demand Cloud resources grant from AMD to support TXST multidisciplinary Public Health Research Center from CS/ISoE/Health and the future Data Science Center towards COVID-19 and health-related research, Aug. 2020-Aug. 2021, Amount: $440,000.00
  • Jacobs Technology – PI, Development, and dissemination to undergraduate students of the core Flight System (cFS), January 1, 2020- Aug. 31, 2020, Amount: $14,500.00
  • FY20 Research Enhancement Program – Co-PI, Development of An Artificial Intelligence System to Prevent Overexertion Injuries at the Workplace, January 1, 2020- May 31, 2021, Amount: $14,938.00

2019

  • Toyota Material Handling North America (TMHNA) – Co-PI, Using Industry 4.0 Digital Twins to Model Human Labor in Smart Material Handling, August 14, 2019 – July 31, 2020, Amount: $197,411.00
  • Exxon Mobil – 100K Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund – Senior Personnel, Building Bridges for New Innovators in Engineering (BBNIE) with the Universidad Politecnica de Guanajuato, Texas International EducationConsortium, & Lamar University, May 14 – November 31, 2019, Amount: $1,000.00

2016-2017

  • Texas Parks & Wildlife Department Grant – Co-PI, Houston Toad recovery: A comprehensive monitoring, evaluation, and support program for head-start success, October 13, 2016 – August 31, 2019, Amount: $125,881.00
  • NEC Corporation of America – Co-PI, Joint Study for a Data-Intensive Analysis of the NEC In-Vehicle Passenger Detect, Texas State University, October 1, 2017 – December 15, 2018, Amount: $9,200.00
  • Semiconductor Research Corporation Education Alliance (SRCEA) Undergraduate Research Opportunities (URO) Grant – Co-PI, Attracting and retaining students at the undergraduate level in science and engineering disciplines relevant to technology-based industries and increasing the progression of these students to graduate school, Texas State University, September 1, 2017 – August 31, 2019, Amount: $35,000.00