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VT EPSCoR Reaches the Summit!

Bottom row (left to right): Graduate Research Assistant Katie Grenon, Focused EPSCoR Collaborations Awardee Appala Raju Badireddy, SOCKS Co-PI Juniper Lovato, STEM Program Manager Renee Simkins
Top row (left to right): VT EPSCoR Director Bernard Cole, VT NASA EPSCoR Assistant Director Ellen Brennan, Assistant to the VT EPSCoR Director Lillian Gamache, SOCKS Postdoctoral Associate Julia Zimmerman, Focused EPSCoR Collaborations Awardee Dryver Huston
 
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) welcomed the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NSF EPSCoR) community to the 2026 EPSCoR Annual Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana from May 19 – 22, 2026.
 
Over 700 attendees shared research and leading practices from project researchers, students, regional leaders and staff from 28 EPSCoR jurisdictions over the four-day Summit.
 
Julia Zimmerman, a postdoctoral associate on the capacity team of the current RII Track-1 Harnessing the Data Revolution for Vermont: The Science of Online Corpora, Knowledge, and Stories (SOCKS) project, presented a poster on her research titled: “A Smorgasbord of Stories”.

Julia Zimmerman presents "A Smorgasbord of Stories"
Julia Zimmerman presenting a posterJulia Zimmerman presenting a poster

 
Katie Ekstrom Grenon, PhD doctoral candidate, Graduate Research Assistant, on the SOCKS Health Team, presented a poster on her research titled: “Yeah, yeah, yeah…An ode to the little words”.
Katie Ekstrom Grenon presents "Yeah, yeah, yeah…An ode to the little words"
Katie Grenon and Bernard Cole at a poster presentationKatie Grenon and Bernard Cole at a poster presentation
Attendees also included Director, Vermont EPSCoR, Vermont Space Grant Consortium and RII Track-1 PI, Bernard F. Cole; RII Track-1 Co-PI, Juniper Lovato; Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC) awardee, Dryver Huston; Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC) awardee, Appala Raju Badireddy; STEM Program Manager for VT EPSCoR, Renee Simkins, Vermont State University (VTSU); Assistant Director, VT Space Grant Consortium & NASA EPSCoR, Ellen Brennan; Assistant to the Director, VT EPSCoR, Lillian Gamache.