This week we're tackling a timely and extremely important topic—preparing for, surviving, and dealing with the aftermath of violent storms. Last month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a "Dear Colleague" letter calling for proposals related to Hurricane Irma:

“Now that the consequences of these disasters are upon us, new science and engineering questions are being raised. Through this Dear Colleague Letter, NSF encourages the submission of proposals that seek to address the challenges related to Hurricane Irma. NSF also will support fundamental science and engineering research projects whose results may enable our country to better prepare for, respond to, recover from, or mitigate future catastrophic events. Research proposals relating to a better fundamental understanding of the impacts of the storm (both physical, biological and societal), human aspects of natural disasters (including first responders and the general public), emergency response methods, and approaches that promise to reduce future damage also are welcome." Read the entire letter here.

On Thursday, we'll bring together our community to strategize about the various ways we could apply "human technology frontier" research to tackle problems related to storm prep and recovery. The goal of this discussion is to generate some promising ideas that can turn into proposals for the NSF call.

Moderators:

Maribeth Gandy Coleman, Director, Interactive Media Technology Center

Keith Edwards, Director, GVU Center