Beckman faculty members Art Kramer and Jeff Moore are principal investigators on two separate projects that were among the winners of a coveted Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) grant competition announced by the Department of Defense in March.

The two projects were among 36 winners selected from 129 proposals in a technical competition that, according to the DoD, is "highly competitive" because the multi-million dollar, multi-year awards "provide greater sustained support than single-investigator awards." The total amount of all the MURI awards is $207M in research funding over five years, distributed to 67 universities in the United States and Canada.

Kramer, who is Co-chair of the Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction research initiative at Beckman, is the PI on a MURI project that includes MIT, the University of Minnesota, and Penn State, in addition to the University of Illinois. The grant was for the topic of "Capitalizing on Research on Animal and Human Brain Plasticity to Enhance Warfighter Training and Performance." The grant is through the Office of Naval Research.

Moore is a faculty member in the Autonomous Materials Systems group and professor in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry at Illinois. He is PI on a project titled "Mechanochemically-Active Polymer Composites" that also includes the University of Texas at Austin and Duke. The grant is through the Office of Army Research.

The awards are for up to five years and are for projects that the department says "typically involve a team of researchers with expertise in a variety of disciplines in order to accelerate both research progress and transition of research results to application."

The winning projects were selected after a competition that solicited proposals in 29 topics important to the DoD. Winners were selected by a merit review panel of experts from the pertinent science and engineering fields.