IUCRC Phase I University of Southern California: Center for Soil Technologies (SoilTech), Lead Site

健康的土壤需要维持生命，种植粮食，提供住所，提供弹性基础设施，并使流动性，但目前缺乏对土壤及其动态的许多关键方面的知识，如水分和有机质含量的变化，以及这些变化如何影响土壤健康和稳定性。土壤技术中心（SoilTech）是南加州大学、爱荷华州州立大学、康涅狄格大学和华盛顿大学之间的合作伙伴关系，旨在解决这一知识差距，其使命是支持与农业、国防、能源和环境相关的行业。通过召集全国各地具有互补专业领域的研究人员，并从广泛的行业，基金会和政府组织中招募行业咨询委员会成员，SoilTech将在了解土壤动态方面取得关键进展。SoilTech将成为这些组织之间技术交流和研究的第一个中心，提供跨学科的知识综合和其研究的广泛应用。SoilTech的参与网站有强大的教育和推广计划，解决STEM领域代表性不足的人口。这些计划将培训下一代劳动力在土壤测量和监测的做法，将广泛造福社会。SoilTech研究团队准备通过四个研究主题在土壤动态过程的理解方面取得重大进展-土壤传感器和传感器网络;土壤建模和数据分析;土壤碳捕获和核算;土壤健康和可持续性。土壤技术支持的研究将满足若干工业部门尚未解决的需求。SoilTech将提供必要的基础研究，以开发新的，更有效的，更可持续的方法来了解土壤特性和管理土壤作为自然资源。在南加州大学（USC），他们的研究贡献将包括开发小型化和廉价的传感器系统，用于土壤水分，有机物含量和污染物，以及使用机器学习和人工智能的土壤数据分析方法，地基和无人机传感器群探测土壤剖面特性到根区，以及土壤地理空间分析决策支持。他们的研究将与多样性，公平和包容性的考虑编织到我们的工作结构进行。他们的劳动力发展计划包括创建新的课程和培训模块，利用南加州大学iPodia在线分布式教室，体验式学习模块，以及与NSF I-Corps Hub：West地区合作，促进学生创业参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Healthy soils are needed to sustain life, to grow food, to provide shelter, to provide resilient infrastructure, and to enable mobility, but there is presently a lack of knowledge about many key aspects of soil and its dynamics such as variations in the moisture and organic matter content, and how these variations affect soil health and stability. The Center for Soil Technologies (SoilTech) is a partnership among the University of Southern California, Iowa State University, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Washington to address this knowledge gap with a mission to support industries related to agriculture, defense, energy, and environment. By convening researchers across the nation with complementary areas of expertise, and by recruiting Industry Advisory Board members from a broad range of industry, foundation, and government organizations, SoilTech will make crucial progress in understanding soil dynamics. SoilTech will serve as a first-of-its-kind hub for technical exchange and research among these organizations, providing inter-disciplinary knowledge synthesis and broad applications of its research. SoilTech’s participating sites have strong education and outreach programs addressing underrepresented populations in STEM fields. These programs will train the next generation of workforce in soil measurement and monitoring practices that will broadly benefit society. The SoilTech research teams are poised to make significant advances in the understanding of dynamic processes in soils through four research themes - Soil Sensors and Sensor Networks; Soil Modeling and Data Analytics; Soil Carbon Capture and Accounting; and Soil Health and Sustainability. SoilTech-enabled research will meet a number of as-yet unaddressed needs in several industry sectors. SoilTech will provide the underlying research necessary to develop new, more efficient, and more sustainable ways of understanding soil properties and managing soils as a natural resource. At the University of Southern California (USC), their research contributions will include the development of miniaturized and inexpensive sensor systems for soil moisture, organic content, and contaminants, as well as soil data analytic methods using machine learning and artificial intelligence, ground-based and drone-based sensor swarms to probe the soil profile properties to the root zone, and soil geospatial analysis for decision support. Their research will be conducted with considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion woven into the fabric of our work. Their workforce development plan includes creation of new courses and training modules, utilizing the USC iPodia online distributed classrooms, experiential learning modules, and collaboration with the NSF I-Corps Hub: West region for student entrepreneurial engagement.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.