NSF ASCEND Engine in Colorado and Wyoming
a place-based innovation ecosystem designed to transform cutting-edge research in advanced sensing and computation for environmental decision-making into economic and societal impact.
With Colorado and Wyoming facing increasing challenges — including wildfires, water scarcity, soil degradation and extreme weather events — this region serves as a strategic testbed for high-impact, technology-driven adaptation strategies. By harnessing advanced sensing, AI-driven analytics, and data-informed decision-making, the NSF ASCEND Engine accelerates the development of scalable resilience solutions.
Accelerating innovation: The NSF ASCEND Engine awarded $3 million in grants to support groundbreaking resilience projects across Colorado and Wyoming. These inaugural investments focus on research, development and commercialization projects that tackle critical resilience challenges, such as water security, wildfire prediction and response, extreme weather modeling, soil carbon sequestration and methane emissions mitigation. The Engine awarded three translational grants in soil health and air quality and awarded five research and development grants in wildfire risk and prediction, water quality, air quality and soil health.
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