The Science Coalition has featured projects conducted by Profs. Craig Kletzing and Micheal Flatté as examples of how university researchers are utilizing federal funding to conduct future-driven research.

Here's the summary of Kletzing's TRACERS research:

Researchers at the University of Iowa (UI) will soon begin building two satellites to study the sun’s effects on earth’s magnetosphere, the region around the Earth that shields it from solar wind with its magnetic field. The project, called Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamic Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS), is funded through NASA and was the single largest amount of external funding in UI history when it launched in 2019. After the design and construction process is complete, TRACERS’ satellites will be used to collect data on the magnetosphere to eventually create better models that can predict – and therefore prevent – disasters like the Quebec Blackout Storm of 1989, a nine-hour power outage in the province caused by a solar event.

Here's the summary of Flatté's quantum computing research:

In an increasingly technological world, encryption is a popular method to keep consumers’ information safe, but quantum computers could soon be able to decode those encryptions. That is why researchers at the University of Iowa are working to develop codes that cannot be broken by quantum computers. Funded by the Department of Energy, the project uses single photons that are impossible to distinguish to protect information and could therefore form the backbone of the future quantum internet.

The Science Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the nation’s leading public and private research universities that are dedicated to sustaining the federal government’s investment in fundamental scientific research.

View the summaries at: https://www.sciencecoalition.org/next-generation-research/