Vanderbilt software institute celebrates big week for grants

Researchers at the Vanderbilt Institute for Software Integrated Systems are celebrating this week after the announcements of three major National Science Foundation grants in three days.

Gokhale

First, the NSF announced on Monday the institute’s Aniruddha Gokhale, associate professor of computer science and computer engineering, would share a $240,000 award with Shivakumar Sastry of the University of Akron. It supports a project to enhance STEM education using Cloud Computing and is part of US Ignite, an initiative to improve and promote next-generation telecommunications.

Gokhale’s award is one of 11 aimed at supporting applications that lead to better education, healthcare and other areas of societal importance.

Also on Monday, an NSF release said research scientist Abhishek Dubey’s team would receive nearly $200,000 to continue work on a mobile app being built in conjunction with Metro Transit Authority. The app not only will use beacon technology to let users know when buses are approaching stops, but it also will track individual savings in mileage cost and carbon footprint. Another feature will allow users to count calories burned with walks to the bus stop.

Dubey

Dubey’s team initially was recognized for its work at the Washington, D.C., Global Cities Team Challenge in June. Dubey and MTA officials said the app should be available by the end of December.

On Wednesday, a project titled “Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization: Active Resources” earned a $2 million grant, with a commitment of an additional $3.6 million over the next three years. Janos Sztipanovits, director of Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems, is the principal investigator on the grant.

Sztipanovits

Sztipanovits and the Vanderbilt Institute for Software Integrated Systems are managing the Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization for the National Science Foundation, linking together all of the organizations working on the topic, archiving and disseminating documents produced by research and offering collaboration platforms for thousands of CPS researchers.

The NSF award numbers, in order, are: 1531070, 1528799 and 1521617.

Contact

Heidi Hall, (615) 322-6614
Heidi.Hall@Vanderbilt.edu
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