Mulitdisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI)
Program Review

Meeting Purpose:

To review technical and program progress and direction of the DoD (Department of Defense) tri-Service MURI (Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative) projects initiated in the FY2014 MURI program.

Meeting Objectives:

1. Provide OSD oversight of the tri-Service MURI program.
2. Provide DoD technical leaders and managers an introduction to and access to emerging scientific advances and breakthroughs made possible by interactive multidisciplinary basic research.
3. Provide tri-Service program managers and program officers an additional opportunity to coordinate basic research across Services.
4. Provide appropriate transition partners and customers the opportunity to assess future potential military applications enabled by current MURI research.

Meeting Background:

The DoD MURI Program supports basic research in science and engineering at US institutions of higher education that is of potential interest to DoD. The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts where more than one traditional discipline interacts to provide rapid advances in scientific areas of interest to the DoD.

The program was initiated over 25 years ago and has regularly produced significant breakthroughs with far reaching consequences to the fields of science, economic growth, and new military technologies. Key to the program’s success is the close management of the MURI projects by Service program officers and their active role in providing research guidance.

• Over the years, DoD’s MURI Program has resulted in significant capabilities for our military forces and opened up entirely new lines of research. Some of these achievements with far reaching consequences were as follows:
• Optical packet switching and all-optical label swapping (Bowers 1995), allowing for faster transmission speeds on the Internet and data networks
• Three-dimensional (3D) photonic band-gap in the microwave regime (Yablonovich 1996), allowing for more efficient radio antennas and enabling hybrid opto-electronic chips
• DNA-based methods for rationally assembling nanoparticles into macroscopic materials (Schatz 1997; Mirkin 2000)
• Use of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) as the active component of a sensor in a compact device (Kasevich 2000), allowing for more accurate timing and navigation devices
• Design of nanopartciles to control the absorption of light (Halas 1999), allowing for targeted thermal effects to treat cancerous tumors