CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees, today announced a total of $2,799,136 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and U.S Department of Education (DOE) to support projects throughout West Virginia.

USDA FUNDING: First, Senator Capito announced $1,999,664 in total from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to support five different projects at West Virginia State University (WVSU) that study a variety of methods of maximizing value from different crops.

“I am happy to see this NIFA funding heading to support programs at WVSU that will pioneer new advances here in our state,” Senator Capito said. “These programs have the potential to increase efficiency in the way we grow and consume food, and can also increase the knowledge we have in science and agriculture to build on in the future.”

NSF FUNDING: Next, Senator Capito secured $699,472 in funding for West Virginia University (WVU) and Marshall University from NSF to support energy and biology research.

“West Virginia has a proud history of having some of America’s top research universities. I am excited to see how WVU can revolutionize the way we understand and produce energy with plasma and what we can learn about the history of life itself from Marshall,” Senator Capito said.

EDUCATION FUNDING: Finally, Senator Capito announced $100,000 in funding to the West Virginia Department of Education from the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) to help expand statewide training and technical assistance to families and practitioners of deaf-blind students for communication and education.

“Every West Virginia student is valuable and deserves access to a quality education,” Senator Capito said. “This funding from the DoE will help ensure that deaf-blind students have resources that meet their learning needs so they can reach their fullest potential.”

Individual awards listed below:

  • $599,831 in USDA NIFA funding for WVSU (Institute, W.Va.) to support a program that aims to perform genetic analysis with traits involving nutraceutical, taste, and flavor (NTF) from the crosses involving habanero peppers and expose students to globally impacted genomic tools combined with breeding programs.
  • $500,000 in USDA NIFA funding for WVSU (Institute, W.Va.) to support a program that investigates regulatory mechanisms controlling coal mine soil and stress tolerance in switchgrass, genetically enhance photosynthesis capacity, biomass, and TAG in switchgrass, and improve the agronomic performance of high biomass and TAG-producing switchgrass.
  • $299,988 in USDA NIFA funding for WVSU (Institute, W.Va.) to support a program that works to develop specialty winter squashes by performing marker assisted selection for enhanced flavor and nutraceuticals involving C. maxima diverse horticulture groups to cater to the demand of consumers looking for new and interesting variations.
  • $299,986 in USDA NIFA funding for WVSU (Institute, W.Va.) to support a program that develops an infrastructure that will significantly enhance the teaching capacity in the area of genome editing with special reference to tomato and phenomic methods to accelerate the identification of genes underling various traits such as fruit colors and other fruit attributes including size and shape.
  • $299,859 in USDA NIFA funding for WVSU (Institute, W.Va.) to support a program that explores various genomics, biochemical, genetic, and molecular approaches to understanding photosynthesis and fatty acid synthesis in soybean.

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  • $474,996 in NSF funding for WVU (Morgantown, W.Va.) to study how energy is converted between electromagnetic fields and the thermal energy of the plasma, which is the energy associated with random motion of the electrically charged particles. This is an important problem across many types of plasmas, including plasmas in space and the very hot plasmas that are used in fusion energy development.
  • $224,476 in NSF funding for Marshall University (Huntington, W.Va.) through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program to study avian systematics, speciation, and adaptation across large island archipelagos.

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  • $100,556 in DOE funding for the West Virginia Department of Education to expand statewide training and technical assistance to families and practitioners of deaf-blind students for communication and education.

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