Highlights
- The National Science Foundation awarded Arizona State University $575,942 for MRI radiofrequency research running July 2026 through June 2031.
- PI Sungmin Sohn's project targets a simultaneous-transmit-and-receive RF front-end that would make scanners more portable and affordable than current systems.
- The grant falls under NSF's CAREER program, which funds early-career faculty integrating research and teaching.
- ASU has a track record with CAREER awards, pulling 15 in 2020 totaling $9.5 million and 16 more in 2021 totaling $9 million.
Arizona State University's Scottsdale campus picked up a $575,942 federal research grant to develop radiofrequency hardware that could make MRI scanners significantly smaller and cheaper, according to NSF Award 2543101 posted to the NSF AwardSearch database.
Principal investigator Sungmin Sohn will lead the project, which runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031 under NSF's Circuits and Systems for Communications program. The core engineering challenge is building what the award abstract calls a "simultaneous-transmit-and-receive" RF front-end, hardware that handles both signal transmission and reception at once, a configuration the abstract says can address fundamental limits of RF transmit-receive isolation in current MRI equipment.
The practical target: MRI scanners that are more portable and affordable than the bulky, expensive systems now in clinical use, with the abstract citing improved access in resource-limited settings as a primary societal benefit.
The grant is a CAREER award, NSF's designation for early-career faculty who show promise in integrating research with teaching. The project includes K-12 outreach using hands-on demonstrations with a DIY MRI scanner model, along with open-source design tools the team plans to publish through industry collaborations.
Why does this matter to ASU's research economy?
ASU has built a consistent pipeline of CAREER awards. The university pulled 15 NSF CAREER awards totaling $9.5 million in 2020 and 16 awards totaling $9 million in 2021, covering research areas from wireless communications to genomics. Each award represents a five-year federal funding commitment to a junior faculty member, making the CAREER program one of the more reliable sources of sustained research capital flowing into the university.
The Sohn award period opens July 1, 2026.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- nsf.gov retrieved 12/07/2026 01:22
- news.asu.edu retrieved 12/07/2026 01:22
- news.asu.edu retrieved 12/07/2026 01:22
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 12/07/2026 01:22. Every claim traces to a source.
