Two University of Missouri professors are the newest recipients of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award that supports early-career faculty.
Jessica Rodrigues and Matthias Young both earned National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program, or CAREER awards, granted to faculty who could serve as academic role models in research and education and lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.
Rodrigues is an assistant professor in special education, and Young is an assistant professor of chemical engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry.
Rodrigues is using her CAREER award to address the gap between mathematics learning research and practices in the classroom, which is an issue because elementary students struggling with math experience cascading difficulties and limited access to STEM fields.
She and her team will develop, asses and refine innovative teaching resources based on research findings aimed at best practices for math teachers with the hopes of sharing research in ways that are useful and valuable for elementary school teachers.
“The award allows me to conduct work that aligns with my goal as a researcher and an educator, which is to amplify students’ success,” Rodrigues said. “The project provides me opportunities to support students at the elementary, undergraduate and graduate levels; to work with and learn from elementary teachers; and to explore how to share research in novel and impactful ways. I feel very fortunate that my department, the university and the National Science Foundation support the goals of the project.”
Young’s CAREER award is exploring how to make polymers (plastics) that conduct electricity and can charge and discharge to make metal-free batteries. The polymers are made by linking small molecules or monomers together into long chains, but how they are usually made is random and messy and doesn’t provide good control over how the molecules link together.
“It is a tremendous honor to receive this award, and I am thankful for the mentorship and support I have received at the University of Missouri that made this award possible,” he said. “This award will provide five years of support for the core research area and core outreach activities that will serve as the foundation of my future career. My research group has been working over the last five years to grow our understanding and incubate impactful research ideas in the polymer science area, and this award is especially meaningful because it gives us encouragement that the polymer community values the ideas we have been working on.”
Young's research could help develop improved materials for numerous applications, including water treatment, chemical sensors and battery technologies.
“In this project, we are making these polymers in a new way to control the sequence of monomers molecule-by-molecule to build up polymer chains,” Young said. “Sort of like the way DNA has different sequences of base pairs, we are programming different sequences of monomers in these conducting polymers. Controlling the polymer structure in this way will help us understand how the monomer sequence influences how electrons and ions flow through the polymer and allow us to control the properties of these polymers for applications like batteries and water treatment.”
Connecting students with their research
CAREER awards also include an educational component for researchers who wish to integrate their research with opportunities for students.
For Young and his team, that means developing hands-on interactive learning modules to make the concepts surrounding the flow of electrons and ions through polymers tangible and engaging for elementary school students.
“Showing the next generation of students how these materials work at an early age will help them understand the world and inspire them to work in this area,” he said. “It is also helpful to me and the students doing research in my group to interact with students and the public in this way. It helps us have a childlike mindset in thinking about the ideas we are dealing with. Revisiting the core ideas that are the foundation of our research projects helps us to think carefully about our assumptions and identify new opportunities.”
Rodrigues’ educational component involves developing virtual training webinars for scholars at MU and around the U.S. focused on communicating education research with teachers, collaborating with the MU Disability Center and mentoring MU undergraduate student researchers.
“I am incredibly enthusiastic about providing MU undergraduate students with funded researcher positions working on the NSF project,” she said. “Students will experience what it is like to work in a STEM education research lab, engage with the research activities of the NSF project, learn how to present research at conferences and more. They will also receive mentorship from the MU doctoral students working in the lab.”
Both Rodrigues and Young were involved in Division of Research professional development programs, such as the MU NSF CAREER Club and Research Development Fellows, to help them with their research proposals, and The Connector to assist them in developing their ideas surrounding broader impact activities.
“I appreciate how the university provides faculty professional development resources, support and training,” Rodrigues said. “I was a member of the Early Career Research Development Fellows cohort that started in 2020. I was also a member of the MU CAREER Club. What I appreciated most was how these programs created a network of support. Not only was I connected to resources available here at the university, but I also benefited from meeting with and learning from my fellow early-career cohort members.”
Rodrigues’ award is titled “Knowledge Exchange for Supporting Youth with or at Risk for Mathematics Difficulty.”
Young’s award is titled “Molecular-level Understanding of Conductive Polymer Properties.”