Environmental Engineering

The Environmental Engineering program supports fundamental research and educational activities across the broad field of environmental engineering. The goal of this program is to encourage transformative research which applies scientific principles to minimize solid, liquid, and gaseous discharges into land, inland and coastal waters, and air that result from human activity, and to evaluate adverse impacts of these discharges on human health and environmental quality. The program fosters cutting-edge scientific research based on fundamental science for identifying, evaluating, and developing new methods and technologies for assessing the waste assimilative capacity of the natural environment and for removing or reducing conventional and emerging contaminants from polluted air, water, and soils. The program fosters environmental sustainability through pollution control and resource management/conservation, and development of techniques to minimize or avoid generating pollution.Major areas of interest and activity in the program include:Water and Wastewater Treatment. Develop innovative biological, chemical and physical treatment processes to remove and degrade contaminants from water; produce potable water; convert wastewaters into renovated water suitable for reuse; investigate the use of nanotechnologies in water and wastewater treatment.Emerging Contaminants. Investigate the fate, transport and remediation of potentially harmful emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting compounds, and fire retardants. (Please note that research concerning the environmental health and safety of nanomaterials should be submitted to the Environmental Health and Safety of Nanotechnology program.)Urban Water Resources Management. Investigate environmental engineering aspects of urban watersheds, reservoirs, estuaries and storm water management; design and operation of artificial wetlands; biogeochemical and transport processes driving water quality in the aquatic environment.Soil Remediation and Landfills. Focus on remediation techniques for contaminated soils, fate and transport of contaminants in soils, and effective solid waste management in landfills.Air Quality. Develop innovative processes to remove or destroy contaminants from air, including atmospheric, air emissions and indoor air; and measure, model and predict the fate of pollutants in air.The duration of unsolicited awards is generally one to three years. The average annual award size for the program is $110,000. Proposals requesting a substantially higher amount than this, without prior consultation with the Program Director, may be returned without review. Innovative proposals outside of these specific interest areas can be considered. However, prior to submission, it is recommended that the PI contact the Program Director to avoid the possibility of the proposal being returned without review.Additional Program Information - 1440: (e.g., Areas of Research, Research Highlights, Conferences and Workshops, Program Director Information, etc.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------INFORMATION COMMON TO MOST CBET PROGRAMSProposals should address the novelty and/or potentially transformative nature http://www.nsf.gov/about/transformative_research/faq.jsp of the concept being proposed, compared to previous work in the field. Also, it is important to address why the proposed work is important in terms of engineering science, as well as to also project the potential impact on society and /or industry of success in the research. The novelty or potentially transformative nature of the research should be included, as a minimum, in the Project Summary of each proposal. Proposals submitted to this program are subject to the scope of the program's description and the availability of funds. Decisions about particular proposals are often very difficult to make and factors other than reviewer comments and ratings enter into the decision. Comments by a reviewer must sometimes be considered in the context of other reviews by the same person. The Program Director often has additional information not available to reviewers (such as project reports). Maintaining appropriate balance among subfields, the availability of other funding, the total amount of funds available to the program, and general Foundation policies and priorities are also important decision factors. Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program proposals are strongly encouraged. Award duration is five years. The submission deadline for Engineering CAREER proposals is in July every year. Please see the following URL for more information: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503214Proposals for Conferences, Workshops, and Supplements: Proposals involving these activities should ideally be submitted during the regular annual proposal window. PIs are strongly encouraged to discuss their requests with the Program Director before submission of the proposal.Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) and EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) are also considered when appropriate. Please note that proposals of these types must be discussed with the Program Director before submission. Further details are available in the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) download. Proposals received outside of the Announced Proposal Window dates will be returned without review..