Professor Payman Dehghanian awarded a major NSF contract

Congratulation to Professor Payman Dehghanian for being awarded a major NSF contract for his project, "Collaborative Research: NNA Research: Foundations for Improving Resilience in the Energy Sector against Wildfires on ALaskan Lands (FIREWALL)"! This is a 4-year multi-institutional and multidisciplinary national effort among GWU, the University of Alaska at Anchorage (UAA), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and Washington State University (WSU). 
 
Here is what Professor Dehghanian had to say about the contract: “I am very excited about the FIREWALL project that will contribute to the national push for enhanced resilience against wildfires. The FIREWALL's national interdisciplinary team of researchers working hand in hand with a variety of stakeholders and local communities in Alaska will design and implement new ideas in the next 4 years that ensure the resilience of both Alaskan energy infrastructure and communities before, during, and following wildfires. As US Senator Lisa Murkowski rightfully highlighted in our FIREWALL Workshop held in 2021, "If we can solve this problem in Alaska, with all of the challenges posed by its unique circumstances, then we can solve it anywhere". We are very thankful to the NSF Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Program for giving us the opportunity to work on this very timely topic with critical implications for the daily life and well-being of Alaskan residents.” 
 
Dehghanian is the GW PI I and the overall project co-lead. Other GWU co-PIs come from GW Law (Donna Attanasio), GW Elliot School (Robert Orttung) and GWSB (Miguel Lejeune). Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas that has supported fundamental convergence research across the social, natural, environmental, engineering, and computing & information sciences since 2017.