NSF Convergence Accelerator Track I: Mind over Matter: Socioresilient Materials Design: A New Paradigm For Addressing Global Challenges in Sustainability

该项目名为NSF融合加速器轨道I：思维重于物质：社会适应性材料设计(SMD)：应对可持续发展全球挑战的新范式(MoMaTS)，将是一项创新的、融合的跨部门和跨学科的努力，旨在从根本上重新思考、重塑、重新引导和加速材料研究和开发方面的新兴技术能力，以实现更多环境、社会和经济可持续的基于材料的产品和材料驱动的成果。我们的材料基础设施和系统越来越多地面临气候冲击，这种冲击在很长一段时间内放大了环境和社会不公正问题。目前的圆形材料设计方法不足以应对挑战，甚至有可能同时降低复原力，并在下游造成意想不到的负面社会影响。该项目汇集了一个来自工业界(锡特林)、学术界(麻省理工学院、康奈尔大学、斯旺西分校)和社会部门(Station1)的团队，通过有目的地设计材料，通过考虑往往联系在一起的技术、环境和社会制度，培养人类社区应对、适应和恢复压力和冲击的公平能力，从而专注于这一问题。该项目对促进环境保护和资源节约、社会福祉和公平、经济繁荣和连续性、基础设施弹性和国家安全具有关键作用和巨大潜力。该项目将在经典材料设计范式(结构-性能-加工-性能关系)的基础上，通过核心融合方法-整合循环设计原理、强大的新兴材料计算能力(即基于分子动力学和密度泛函理论、人工智能(AI)/机器学习(ML)、进化优化算法等物理化学定律的多尺度计算材料设计)，开发新的社会适应性材料设计(SMD)领域。以及严格的人文科学和社会科学方法，以了解和促进亲社会的社会影响。该项目将开发SMD框架、指标清单、新设计方法的知识库、先进的计算方法、示范用例研究、数据集和一个开放的软件工具，以供决策过程使用。除了传统的材料属性外，SMD参数、指标和约束条件还将被纳入高级计算材料设计工作流程，以实现多目标优化，并量化和了解存在的内在权衡。将开发方法和软件工具，以可视化和评估多参数设计空间中技术指标和SMD指标之间的这种权衡。项目研究成果的编纂和传播将对不同学科产生广泛而深远的影响，包括开放软件、面向学术受众的出版物、对教育学和课程的贡献、对学术界和初创界新兴研究的影响、创造新的合作以及将研究成果转化为公众参与的机会。这项研究将作为本科课程开发和交付的基础，包括通过研究项目扩大STEM本科生的参与范围，这些学生来自历史上代表性不足的背景，重点是美国各地资源不足的高等教育机构注册的学生的参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project, NSF Convergence Accelerator Track I: Mind over Matter: Socioresilient Materials Design (SMD): A New Paradigm For Addressing Global Challenges in Sustainability (MoMaTS), will be an innovative, convergent cross-sector and cross-disciplinary effort to fundamentally re-think, re-shape, re-direct, and accelerate emergent technical capabilities in materials research and development towards more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable materials-based products and materials-driven outcomes. Increasingly, our materials infrastructure and systems are faced with climate shocks which amplify environmental and social injustice issues over long periods of time. The current state of circular materials design approaches are insufficient to address challenges, and even have potential to simultaneously degrade resiliency, as well as to create downstream unintended negative societal impacts. This project brings together a team from industry (Citrine), academia (MIT, Cornell, Swansea), and the social sector (Station1) to focus on this issue via the intentional design of materials which foster the equitable capacity of human communities to cope with, adapt to, and recover from stresses and shocks, through consideration of the often bridging technical, environmental, and social systems. This project is critical for, and has great potential to, advance environmental protection and resource conservation, social well-being and equity, economic prosperity and continuity, infrastructure resiliency and national security.This project will develop the new field of “Socioresilient Materials Design” (SMD) by building upon the classic materials design paradigm (structure - property - processing - performance relationships) through a core convergence approach - integrating circular design principles, powerful emergent materials computational capabilities (i.e. multiscale computational materials design based on physicochemical laws such as molecular dynamics and density functional theory, artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML), evolutionary optimization algorithms), and rigorous humanistic and social sciences methodologies to understanding and fostering socioresilient societal impacts. This project will develop a SMD framework, inventory of metrics, knowledge base of novel design approaches, advanced computational methods, exemplar use case studies, datasets, and an open software tool, for utilization in decision-making processes. SMD parameters, metrics, and constraints, in addition to traditional material properties, will be incorporated into advanced computational materials design workflows for multi-objective optimization and to quantify and understand the inherent trade-offs present. Methodologies and software tools will be developed to visualize and assess such trade-offs between technical and SMD metrics in multi-parametric design spaces. The codification and dissemination of project research results will have a broad reaching impact across disparate disciplines including open software, publications for scholarly audiences, contributions to pedagogy and curriculum, influence on emergent research in the academic and start-up communities, the creation of new collaborations, and translation of research outcomes into opportunities for public engagement. This research will serve as a basis for undergraduate curriculum development and delivery and include broadening participation through research projects for STEM undergraduate students from historically under-represented backgrounds with an emphasis on participation by students enrolled in under-resourced higher education institutions across the United States.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.