DoD DARPA Young Faculty Award

Note: The following program summary is for informational purposes only. Always review the most recent version of the sponsor’s full announcement to verify that the deadline and requirements have not changed.

About the program

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior research positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions, particularly those without prior DARPA funding, to expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) needs and DARPA’s mission to create and prevent technological surprise. YFA will provide high-impact funding to elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research that enables transformative DoD capabilities. Ultimately, YFA is developing the next generations of researchers focused on national security issues.

Topic Areas (TAs):

  1. Modulation of Brown Adipose Tissue for Arctic Resilience
  2. Engineered Cellular Symbiosis (ECS)
  3. Hierarchical Control of Biomaterial Structure, Function, and Organization for Injury Repair
  4. Metabolic Engineering Enabling Rare Chemistries
  5. Strongly Correlated Material Systems and Sensors
  6. Benchmarking Power Requirements for Electromagnetic Non-reciprocity
  7. Autonomous Manufacturing and Repair for Austere Environments
  8. Neuromorphic Metamaterials
  9. Computational Theory of Information Control
  10. Threat Modeling of the Influence Platform Ecosystem
  11. Patch Process Leapfrogging
  12. 1Computational Theory of Insecurity
  13. Effective Assurance for 5G Technologies
  14. Adaptive Conventions for Human-Machine Partnership
  15. Embodied Physical Intelligence
  16. Physics of Charge Trapping in Bulk Dielectrics
  17. In-Situ Characterization of Additively Manufactured Materials in Complex Structures
  18. Self-Assembled Transistor Fabrication to Support Manufacturing as a Technology Differentiator
  19. Highly-reliable and Bandwidth-scalable Electrical Interconnects
  20. Intelligent Sensor Management for Undersea Environmental Characterization
  21. Distributed Machine Learning over Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs)
  22. Trust Architectures to Enable Space Infrastructure as a Service
  23. Scaling Challenges in Metal Additive Manufacturing
  24. Platform Design Optimization Leveraging Power Beaming
  25. Integrated Perception Learning and Control for Autonomous Robots

Eligibility

Proposers must meet the eligibility criteria listed below:

  • U.S. Citizens, U.S. Permanent Residents, and Foreign National
  • One of the following (excluding any personal leaves of absence) by the full proposal deadline: current Tenure-Track Assistant/Associate Professors; current Tenured faculty within 3 years of their Tenure date; or an equivalent at a non-profit research institution within 12 years of the receipt of their Ph.D.
  • Employed at a U.S. institution, which includes those in U.S. states and territories (proposals from outside these regions will not be accepted).
  • Have not previously received a YFA Award.

Award Info

Each award will include a 24-month base period (a maximum of $500,000) and a 12-month option period (a maximum of $500,000).

Application deadline

Full Proposal Due Date: January 25, 2022, 2:00 p.m. MT

Program Page with Solicitation, FAQ, and Summaries of Recent Awards: