Idaho State University Announces 2025 ISU-CAES Internal Seed Grant Recipients

Idaho State University (ISU) is proud to announce the recipients of the 2025 ISU-CAES Internal Seed Grants. The program provides funding to ISU-led projects in collaboration with researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). A total of $73,575 was awarded this year.

Funding was awarded to projects associated with CAES Focus Areas and INL’s Strategic Science and Technology (S&T) Initiatives and that engendered collaboration with INL researchers. Proposals were evaluated in a double-blind peer review process by scientists from the United States Department of Energy’s national laboratories. The main factors considered in proposal evaluation were intellectual merit/quality, relation to CAES Focus Areas and INL’s Strategic S&T Initiatives and potential for external funding.

Congratulations to the Principal Investigators (PIs):

	Dr. Chikashi Sato, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering “Lab Validation of Effectiveness of a Sustainable Solution in Mitigating Near-Shore Ocean Acidification” ISU Co-PIs: Dr. John Dudgeon, Dr. Kavita Sharma INL Collaborator: Dr. Asef Redwan $15,000
	Dr. Dan Dale, Professor, Department of Physics “Development of a Lab for Analysis of Geothermal Brines” ISU Co-PI: Dr. Tony Forest INL Collaborators: Dr. Edna Cardenas, Dr. Michael Reichenberger $13,575
	Dr. Joshua Pak, Professor, Department of Chemistry “Study of Precursors for F-Element Nanomaterials” ISU Co-PI: Dr. Andy Holland INL Collaborators: Dr. Liyanage Ashini Jayasinghe, Dr. Christopher Zarzana $15,000
	Dr. Paul Bodily, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science “Crowdsourcing and Visualization of Advanced Computational Theory for Real-World Combinatorial Problems” INL Collaborator: Dr. Rajiv Khadka $15,000
	Dr. Mahesh Acharya, Affiliate Faculty, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering/ Postdoctoral Research Associate, Idaho National Laboratory “Novel Materials for Geothermal Wells” INL Collaborators: Trevor Atkinson and Dr. Travis McLing ISU Co-PIs: Jared Cantrell, Dr. Daniel LaBrier, Dr. Mustafa Mashal $15,000
	Dr. Mostafa Fouda, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science “Advancing Critical Materials Exploration” INL Collaborator: Ahmed Hamed ISU Co-PIs: N/A $15,000
	Dr. Minhaz Zibran, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science “Interactive Software Visualization” INL Collaborator: Kolton Heaps ISU Co-PIs: Farjana Eishita $15,000