The St. Louis-based James S. McDonnell Foundation has announced grants totaling $6 million through its 21st Century Science Initiative.

The initiative funds research in two areas — human cognition and dynamic and multi-scale systems — and also awards grants in support of projects aligned with its programmatic interests but structured so as to allow the foundation flexibility to pursue unusual opportunities.

Grant recipients include Temple University (Expanding the Horizons for Research at the Developmental Interface of Brain, $250,000 over four years); University of Cambridge (Embracing Complexity in Neurodevelopment, $250,000 over four years); and Yale University (Establishing Ground Truth About the Development of Episodic Memory in Infancy, $250,000 over four years). In addition, Weill Medical College of Cornell University was awarded $1.5 million over three years in support of the COVID-19 Consortium for Recovery of Consciousness, while Washington University in St. Louis will receive $750,000 over three years in support of the Collective Memory Collaborative.

Recipients of postdoctoral fellowships include Caitlin Cornell (University of California, Berkeley), Michelle Feng (California Institute of Technology, Artem Kaznatcheev (University of Pennsylvania), Christopher Lynn (City University of New York), Sandeep Manjanna (University of Pennsylvania), and Brandon Schlomann (University of California, Berkeley).

"The foundation continues to fulfill James S. McDonnell’s vision of serving society by supporting the quest for new knowledge and its responsible application," said McDonnell Foundation president Susan M. Fitzpatrick. "These new grants are pushing forward the foundation’s agenda of supporting scientific research contributing solutions to important complex problems."

For a complete list of 21st Century Science Initiative awards, see the McDonnell Foundation website.