Two SDSU faculty members receive prestigious NSF grants

Rachel Short and Gazala Ameen, two assistant professors in South Dakota State University's College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, have each received one of the National Science Foundation's most prestigious grants for early career faculty to pursue biology research projects.

This particular source of funding — NSF’s New Faculty Enhancement program — is designed to elevate promising early career faculty members in the biological sciences. The funding will enable them to increase their research capacity and build their independent research programs.

"We are thrilled that The National Science Foundation has recognized Dr. Short and Dr. Ameen are some of the nation's most promising research scientists," said John Blanton Jr., director of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station at SDSU and associate dean for research for the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. "Despite working in very different fields, their research converges on a common goal: improving the lives of South Dakotans and agricultural and environmental sustainability."

Short and Ameen are the first two researchers in South Dakota to be awarded funding from this program.

Studying the past to understand the future

Short's three-year, $453,670 project will focus on identifying and studying fossils from Wind Cave National Park to understand how animals have responded and will continue to respond to human presence and environmental change.

"The study of the relationships between traits and environments, also called ecometrics, enables researchers to study animals that lived at different times or in different places," Short explained. "Researchers can use the fossil record to learn how animals responded to environmental changes in the past and to predict how animals might respond in the future. Our ultimate goal is to support future conservation and management of mammal communities by providing this long-term understanding."

The project, which will be in collaboration with Nathaniel Fox, associate director of the Museum of Geology at South Dakota Mines, will combine physical characteristic data from mammals, like bison, pronghorn, coyotes, prairie dogs and rabbits from the fossil record dating back 200,000 years and from those mammals living in Wind Cave National Park currently. By combining the two data sets, the research team will be able to estimate the direction and size of change at each site over time and into the future. They will also use climate projections to assess what traits might be necessary in the future.

“I’m excited to form a team with Dr. Fox and with paleontologists from the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs to understand this dynamic region," Short said. "We will have two SDSU graduate students in my lab working on this project as well as undergraduates from South Dakota Mines. The student team will also work together to install a museum exhibit at the Museum of Geology to convey our findings to the public."

Plant disease and food security

Plant diseases caused by fungal pathogens pose a serious risk to global food security. In a three-year, $494,829 project, Ameen will look to identify the plant defense response indicators to these destructive pathogens.

"My lab seeks to answer how the plant immune system incorporates diverse receptors to derive a unified defense response, by shared or unique pathways, to fight pathogens," Ameen said. "Our NSF-funded project investigates the function of plant wall-associated kinase immunity receptors in barley as a model, with a goal of harnessing the potential of these new receptors in agricultural crops that affect the quality and quantity of the food we eat."

In addition to undergraduate and graduate student training in science research, Ameen's project will also include significant outreach efforts for female students at the middle school level to inspire young minds in the field of science through hands-on workshops.

"The equally best part of this project is training the next generation of scientists from every spectrum of educational backgrounds and shaping their careers in STEM education," Ameen added.

"Dr. Shorts' innovative work exploring how the past can help prepare for the future and Dr. Ameen's groundbreaking research into plant diseases and how we can protect the world's food supply are testaments to their dedication and impact," Blanton added. "This recognition underscores the significant contributions they are making to our community and the agricultural industry."

Funding for Short’s project is jointly supported by NSF's Population and Community Ecology cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Division of Biological Infrastructure. Ameen’s project is solely funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure.