Nearly two years in, NSF program maximizes research impact at Montana State

At Montana State University, a unique program funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation is helping scientists to not only answer that question but put it into action. The NSF Accelerating Research Translation, or NSF ART, program, provides support and funding to create a bridge between university researchers and the people who can use and benefit from their work.

NSF ART began at MSU in 2024 with a $6 million investment from the NSF to expand the research translation support infrastructure of the Technology Transfer Office and to support seed translational research projects, or STRPs, with funding and mentorship to directly advance promising research toward public benefit. One of MSU’s STRPs has been led by Tricia Seifert, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Development, whose research focuses on learning and development in adolescent students.

Seifert’s STRP has continued longtime work developing a digital platform through which middle and high school students explore the higher education experience. While the platform has been more than a decade in the making, ART funding supported the production of the digital product now used in more than a dozen Montana schools to help students prepare for and learn about their college futures.

It also threw Seifert a curveball: through the work, she became a business owner.

“On one hand, I am still the researcher on this product that I’ve been so invested in,” Seifert said. “But now I’ve also created a small, woman-owned LLC. I have learned in the moment, and as a necessity, and not alone. I’ve been really leaning into other people’s knowledge bases.”

The platform, called Success Prints Crash Course, has now been rolled out for teachers and students to use, along with curriculum that helps them debrief the experience and discuss what they learned. Some participating schools are part of the Montana University System’s GEAR UP program, which aims to increase high school graduation rates and improve students’ readiness for college coursework.

Seifert said that while interactive learning has been proven to provide powerful benefits, adding reflection concentrates and expands educational impact.

“We’re intentionally using that literature to inform how we bring this into Montana schools,” she said.

Seifert’s project was one of the first two STRPs funded by the first round of ART funding in 2024. Other supported work includes:

• A wearable device developed by nursing professor Elizabeth Johnson to ensure proper treatment for patients in clinical trials who come from rural, remote and tribal communities.
• Work led by professor Blake Wiedenheft focused on the science and opportunities surrounding CRISPR technology, which has applications ranging from vaccine development to the treatment of genetic diseases.
• Tools developed by Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering assistant professor and MSU alumnus Riley Logan to detect algal blooms in rivers and other waterways.
• Genetic exploration by doctoral student Brandon Tillett and professor Mike Giroux in the Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology to increase yield in durum wheat, which is used for making pasta, and other grains.
• Computers developed by engineering professor Brock LaMeres designed to function in space and resist cyberattacks, one of which was recently sent to the moon on a NASA mission.

The variety of supported projects is a testament to the ART program’s true purpose, said TTO director Daniel Juliano. Supporting work across disciplines and departments allows researchers of any specialty to connect their work with the people who can put it to use in the real world. In addition to providing support directly to researchers, ART has also allowed the TTO to establish training programs to help faculty commercialize their newly developed technologies, a program known as the Builders Cohort.

“Often a key piece of successfully translating research to practice is customer discovery,” Juliano said. “There’s a starting point, the societal or technical problem I need to solve. But as you start making progress on that fundamental research and approaching some sort of solution, the details really matter. It’s not enough just to solve the problems and be done. You have to start looking at, how do I deliver a solution that will be effective to a customer?”

The cohort was the brainchild of TTO associate director Magali Eaton, who arrived at MSU in spring 2024 to help oversee and implement the ART program. Both Juliano and Seifert credited Eaton and training and development coordinator Travis Russell for providing guidance and resources to faculty who may be in their first foray into research translation.

“I can’t say enough about the team of mentors and advisers that they have created,” said Seifert. “They’ve asked hard questions and made really good suggestions, and I’m so grateful that the ART program has those seasoned business folks.”

As the ART program continues, a new round of STRP funding will be available this fall. Faculty are encouraged to apply through MSU’s TTO to benefit from support and resources that Juliano says are unique in MSU’s history. The TTO is now better equipped to guide innovators through the translation process and implement it in practical ways, including establishing companies and applying for patents.

“The university now has an entire support system, an entire infrastructure, designed to facilitate research translation in a way that it really didn’t before,” he said.

For Seifert, the program also creates an opportunity for researchers to expand their skills and close the loop on the scientific process by seeing projects through to tangible societal benefit.

“ART is the mechanism to take what’s happening within the university and prepare it for use in an applied place. It’s literally that bridge between the researchers and the users, and I feel so fortunate to be on the research end,” she said. “As faculty, we ask first-year students to be comfortable being uncomfortable and commit to learning for a lifetime. And once you, as a researcher, take your own best advice, that’s when I think you can start to really move the needle in this kind of innovation.”