U-M Principal Investigator: Birhanu Eshete
Project Title: DeResistor: Detection Resilient Probing of Censorship Middleboxes
Sponsor: U.S. Department of State (through SRI International)
Award Amount: $299,002
Under the Internet Freedom Annual Program, Eshete will collaborate with SRI International in support of research and development activities that will enhance DeResistor prototyping, existing system performance evaluation, and system integration and software distribution. This research will support the U.S. International Strategy for Cyberspace goals to protect the open, interoperable, secure and reliable Internet.
U-M Principal Investigator: Weidong Xiang
Project Title: Revitalize Auto Industry: Elevating Automotive Workforce Excellence through Cybersecurity and AI Innovation
Sponsor: National Security Agency (through Oakland University)
Award Amount: $249,130
Xiang’s team will collaborate with researchers at Oakland University to develop a tutorial on Cybersecurity in C-V2X in 5G/6G systems and present workshops on Physical and Network Layer Security in CAN and Security in Autonomous Driving and Navigation.
U-M Principal Investigator: Adam Sekuler
Project Title: Peace Through the Lens: Arab and Jewish American Film Initiative
Direct Sponsor: The Ravitz Foundation
Award Amount: $18,000
"Peace Through the Lens: Arab and Jewish American Film Initiative" is a transformative educational program set for Fall 2025. The goal of the program is to empower students through collaborative filmmaking with Arab American and Jewish American filmmakers, fostering mutual understanding, empathy and dialogue, while challenging stereotypes and contributing to peacebuilding efforts amidst historical and contemporary conflicts. Funding from this project will support filmmaker residencies and community events, aiming to enrich both students' educational experiences and community cohesion.
U-M Principal Investigator: Junaid Farooq
Project Title: 5G Hardware Encryption Cybersecurity Integration Evaluation
Direct Sponsor: Opex Systems, LLC
Total Sponsor Authorized Amount: $45,000.00
This project aims to assess the impact of hardware security module (HSM)-based encryption on the performance of real-time over-the-air communication in private 5G networks. With the perception that hardware encryption provides significantly enhanced security compared to software-based methods, this project seeks to evaluate the validity of this claim through a dual-pronged approach: theoretical analysis and practical implementation. By integrating HSMs into the encryption process, the project will measure the trade-offs between the increased security assurances and the potential performance implications, such as latency and throughput, in ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) scenarios. The outcomes will provide a comprehensive understanding of the feasibility and effectiveness of deploying HSM-based encryption in next-generation wireless networks, informing best practices for secure and efficient 5G communication systems.
Call for Nominations: OVPR Research Faculty & Staff Awards
The Dearborn community is strongly encouraged to consider nominating UM-Dearborn staff and faculty for the annual OVPR Research Faculty & Staff Awards.
Research staff and faculty play a critical role in supporting and advancing university operations. OVPR is seeking nominations for its series of awards to recognize members of the U-M research community whose work helps advance knowledge, solve challenging problems, create new products and enhance quality of life.
Research Staff awards are open to all regular non-faculty staff members employed by any unit of the University of Michigan’s three campuses. Students, tenured/tenure track, clinical track and research track faculty are not eligible for these awards.
Learn more here and submit your nominations by Feb. 12.
To honor the scholarly work of research faculty, OVPR also encourages nominations for its Collegiate Research Professorship Award, Research Faculty Achievement Award and Research Faculty Recognition Award. The newly established Research Faculty Mentor Award has been created to recognize the outstanding research faculty who have demonstrated excellence in mentoring and celebrate the crucial role that mentorship plays in the professional and personal development of emerging researchers.
Learn more here and submit your nominations by Feb. 19.
NSF Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator Seeking Experts
The NSF Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator (R2I2) program is seeking experts from diverse sectors and disciplines to cover the wide range of scientific topics and partnerships represented in the R2I2 proposals. The R2I2 program supports collaborative, community-engaged initiatives to develop and implement scalable solutions to climate-related resilience challenges by translating recent research advancements in Earth system science into practical applications.
The program supports translation of existing earth systems science to practical solutions that address regional resilience challenges. Serving as a reviewer is a great way to help your community, better understand how NSF reviews proposals and get insight into NSF's new investments in translational research.
You can use this link to fill out the potential reviewer survey.
Every month, the Office of Research features a resource and/or tool that is available for researchers. This month we are featuring the UM Medical School’s AI Letter of Support Writer, an innovative tool that can quickly generate multiple versions of tailored letters, saving time and overcoming the challenge of starting from a blank page.
How it works: users begin by tailoring the suggested prompt template. Next, copy/paste the prompt into the platform to generate a draft letter of support. Users can submit the same prompt multiple times for different letter variations. The AI Letter of Support Writer uses U-M Maizey, which is part of the U-M generative AI toolset. Level-1 access and login are required.
Assistance or questions about the platform can be directed to [email protected].
The Office of Research publishes a list of selected funding opportunities, organized by college, every month on our website under Announcements. Yearly grant calendars organized by subject area provided by Hanover Research are available there as well.
Use the updated U-M Research Commons to look up internal (to U-M) funding opportunities and Limited Submission opportunities open to Dearborn researchers.
Contact the UM-Dearborn Office of Research if you would like more information about submitting a proposal to any of the programs.
