The W. M. Keck Foundation has awarded $1.2 million in grants to six Stanford faculty and student teams. These pairs were chosen because their work aligns with WMKF’s focus areas of basic research and was significantly impacted by changes in the federal funding environment.

According to their website, the WMKF Bridge Funding Initiative is designed to fund “doctoral student support and essential research expenses during a period of significant uncertainty in the federal funding landscape” and “aims to provide continuity in the research and training pipeline that drives American innovation.”

The funded Stanford projects are:

• “Non-fullerene acceptors for singlet fission photovoltaics” from Daniel Congreve, assistant professor of electrical engineering in the School of Engineering, and PhD student Divine Mbachu. Congreve and Mbachu are researching singlet fission – a process in molecules that splits one high-energy excitation into two low-energy excitations – as a means to build the next generation of efficient organic photovoltaic devices. Photovoltaics are key drivers of clean, inexpensive energy.
• “Imaging collective modes and electronic dynamics at the nanoscale” from Ben Feldman, associate professor of physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S), and PhD student Hephzibah Akinleye. The primary goal of this project is to develop radio-frequency single-electron transistor microscopy and use it to image collective modes and dynamical electronic response across quantum materials systems.
• “Imprinted superlattices: Redefining quantum matter by design” from Fang Liu, assistant professor of chemistry in H&S, and PhD student Lianne Alson. This work will investigate new possibilities for designing quantum materials. Superlattices are layered super-thin structures of two or more materials that have been foundational to advances in superconductivity and quantum sciences, among other applications. The researchers will introduce superlattice reconstructions across diverse material platforms using new chemical techniques and reveal their emergent quantum phases through advanced scanning probe and spectroscopic methods.
• “Ribbon-like chain theory for orientational ordering of conjugated polymers” from Jian Qin, associate professor of chemical engineering in the School of Engineering, and PhD candidate Srikant Sagireddy. This project focuses on semiconducting conjugated polymers, which have enabled developments in flexible and printable electronics. These researchers are developing a theory at the molecular scale to explain how semiconducting polymers, and other types of ribbon-like molecules, organize themselves into mesoscopic structures that improve their performance. This theory allows for predictions of orientational ordering, which could help researchers better understand the interplay between molecular flexibility and charge transport.
• “Developing large radio-frequency-over-fiber arrays to quantify the 3D evolution of subsurface ice-sheet processes” from Dustin Schroeder, associate professor of geophysics in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and of electrical engineering in the School of Engineering, and PhD student Oliver Pranis. Schroeder and Pranis seek to develop and deploy a software-defined “Radio Frequency over Fiber” system to observe critical processes within ice sheets, such as those in Greenland and Antarctica. The system aims to be a large, low-resource, deployable array capable of capturing 3D timeseries observations of subsurface conditions.
• “To divide, or not to divide? Resolving membrane tension and cortical dynamics during active mitosis” from Shannon Yan, assistant professor of biology in H&S, and PhD candidate Carly Montan Stein. The goal of this project is to directly and quantitatively resolve, in a nonperturbing manner, the membrane tension dynamics in live mammalian cells undergoing mitosis. Dysregulation of mitotic dynamics can lead to genomic instability and diseases, such as cancer and developmental disorders. By integrating membrane tension dynamics with known structural and biochemical players in mitosis, their work will provide a unifying physical framework on how mechanical regulation supports successful cell division.

The W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by William Myron Keck, who envisioned “a philanthropic institution that would provide far-reaching benefits for humanity.” The foundation supports outstanding science, engineering, and medical research as well as undergraduate education.