The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced awards totaling more than $1.2 million to support 13 research projects throughout the Texas A&M University System that aim to understand the effects of natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey.
“In the aftermath of Harvey, the Texas A&M System has stepped up to aid in the recovery and rebuilding of our state in unprecedented and inspiring ways,” said A&M System Chancellor John Sharp. “I am proud that our researchers are hard at work helping us better understand and prepare for the next storm, and I’m grateful to the NSF for supporting these efforts.”
The NSF announced 59 new grants totaling $5.3 million for hurricane-related research on Oct. 10. The Texas A&M System’s projects represented about 22 percent of those and received about 23 percent of the funding.
System entities receiving grants included Texas A&M University, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and West Texas A&M University.
The funded projects cover a variety of research areas, including the hurricane’s impact on water quality, human-robotic interactions during the recovery process, a natural disaster’s effects on food distribution, the use of unmanned aerial systems during hurricane response and strategies to provide better coastal protection, among others.
For the full list of A&M System projects funded, please read the complete Texas A&M system news release. For a list of all 59 NSF-funded projects relating to studying the effects of recent hurricanes, read the NSF news release.