Kevin Esterling - US grants

The Internet has the potential to transform our democracy.a potential that has begun to receive substantial
scholarly attention. This attention has focused on the potential transformational effects of the technology on civil society, and, in the political realm, how the Internet might transform political discourse. Researchers have devoted little attention, however, to how the Internet might transform existing institutions for connecting citizens to elected officials. This relationship is the fundamental building block of a epresentative
democracy, and it has come under increasing strain as our country has grown since the time of the founders, as the number of matters the state is involved in has multiplied; and as policy problems have grown more complex. The Internet offers a set of tools that might help to arrest this trend, and to fundamentally alter the level of participation of citizens in the consultative process with their representatives. Strikingly, this potential for change has largely been unrealized and unstudied. While there has been a considerable amount of scholarship on the impact of the Internet on government, governance, and society, there has been little systematic research on how Members of Congress use or should use the Internet to provide information to and interact with their constituents.

This research has both a qualitative and a quantitative component, where each of these components complement and inform the other. In the statistical component, longitudinal data to will be collected to explain the diffusion patterns of web-based technologies among the congressional offices. All congressional websites will be assessed along such dimensions as their informational value, accessibility, usability, and interactivity. Data will be collected on factors that might plausibly affect adoption ecisions.e.g., regarding the characteristics of districts, Members, the mechanisms for information spread in Congress, and so on.

The qualitative component will entail fieldwork in approximately 12 offices, stratified by the degree of web
technology adoption, as well as by political party and tenure. This in-depth field will allow study of the dynamic micro-processes that underlie and ultimately explain the aggregate patterns of technology diffusion, and will allow exploration of the internal practices and the relative efficiency of how congressional offices manage digitally-mediated information and feedback from constituents.

An important partner in the work will be the Congressional Management Foundation, which will provide unique access to data and individuals.

The intellectual merit of the project has several dimensions. The research combines rigorous quantitative and qualitative research to address novel questions regarding the practice of digital government in legislative settings. The research will contribute directly to the political science research on congressional behavior and institutions, and in particular to an emerging literature on entrepreneurial behavior among legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives. The research also will contribute to political scientists' and sociologists' research on the processes for the diffusion of innovations, and would be the first study of the role social networks play within the U.S. Congress in the timing of adoption of new forms of governance and new institutions for legislative representation.

The research team includes political science and information technology research faculty at four major research universities, who are linked through the National Center for Digital Governance (NCDG)
at Harvard University. The research will produce a series of conference papers, academic journal articles,
and an academic press book on democracy in the digital age. In addition, the Congressional Management Foundation and the U.S. Congress itself will help to ensure that the knowledge that emerges through this research will help to transform the adoption and use of digital technology in Congress through a series of best practice reports, debriefing sessions, and annual conferences.

ID: 1359136 PI: Bartels, Ludwig ORG: University of California-Riverside

Title: REU Site: Materials Connection (MaCReu R'Side)

TECHNICAL SUMMARY
The Materials Connection Research Experience for Undergraduate Students (MacReu) site at the University of California-Riverside (UCR) will provide 10 students with experience in a broad spectrum of preparative methods for composite and thin film (including 2D) growth through active participation in ongoing research efforts. Thin films and 2D materials play crucial roles in a wide spectrum of technologies, from activating catalysts for crude oil refining to automotive emission control to the next generation of microchip transistors. The MacReu students will join research groups from Chemistry, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering, reflecting the broad impact of thin film materials. All participating faculty and research labs are affiliated with the UCR interdepartmental Materials Science and Engineering program, so undergraduates from a wide range of fields will be exposed to a highly interdisciplinary environment. Specific research efforts will include growth of MoS2 and related transition metal dichalcogenides for electronic applications, preparation of materials for photo-/electro-catalytic water splitting, and development of novel atomic-layer and chemical-vapor based growth methodologies. The students will jointly be instructed in hands-on practical materials characterization including electron microscopy, Raman, photoluminescence, and Infrared spectroscopy. Co-directed by a chemist and a professor of political science, this project will also generate quantitative measures of the success of the MacReu program as well as actionable and unbiased evaluation of the educational concept and effectiveness.

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY
The Materials Connection Research Experience for Undergraduate Students (MacReu) Site at the University of California-Riverside (UCR) will provide 10 students per year with experience in working in research labs that target the preparation of an array of composite and thin-film materials, including 2-D materials, that will form the basis for the next generation of chemical catalysts and advanced electronic devices. These materials play crucial roles in a wide spectrum of technologies, ranging from oil refining to emission control to data and signal processing. The MacReu students will join research groups from Chemistry, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering, reflecting the broad impact of thin film materials. All participating faculty and research labs are affiliated with the UCR interdepartmental Materials Science and Engineering program, so undergraduates from a wide range of fields will be exposed to a highly interdisciplinary environment. The students will gain hands-on experience in a number of essential techniques for making and analyzing advanced materials. The REU site will actively recruit from 2-year and 4-year institutions, particularly Hispanic Serving Institutions, in Southern California. Besides providing the MacReu students with exciting research experience, this project seeks to form them into an outreach team that is effective in promoting STEM education to their peers at Southern California 2-year colleges and high-schools serving a population of 12 million within about 50 miles of UCR. At this same time, such activity will impart leadership and presentation skills in the MacReu participants in support of their future careers.

This award will fund a new campus initiative for the cultivation of ethical climates and practices in STEM research, using a novel online communications platform combined with a project-based training designed to be compatible with that platform. UC Riverside will deploy and evaluate this campus-wide interdisciplinary project, Institutional Re-engineering Ethical Discourse in STEM (iREDS), by examining the effects of two randomized interventions, separately and combined, and in comparison with a fourth control group receiving the standard ethics training that currently exists on campus.

The project represents a paradigm shift from changing individuals' behavior through instruction, to cultivating a campus culture intended to emerge from intensive digital interaction amplified by ethics training introduced during laboratory projects. Broader Impacts of the deployment and evaluation of the interaction of two novel interventions include a model transferable to other institutions, a test bed at an Hispanic Serving Institute (HSI) in the midst of rapid research and student population growth (25% of incoming domestic PhD graduate students are underrepresented minorities), and the potential offer guidance to federal agencies regarding future Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) policy.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a highly competitive, federal fellowship program. GRFP helps ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and in STEM education. The GRFP provides three years of financial support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant research achievements in STEM and STEM education. This award supports the NSF Graduate Fellows pursuing graduate education at this GRFP institution.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.