University Receives ONR Grant: ‘A project that has impact’ on society

Amateur radio has a long history of public service.

When emergencies and natural disasters cause conventional systems to fail, amateur radio, with its high-frequency radio waves, is used to provide reliable, long-distance communications.

Those high-frequency radio waves, however, are not guaranteed. They, too, require ongoing research.

The University of Scranton is on the front line of that research and received a three-year, $600,000 grant (subject to annual appropriations) from the Office of Naval Research. The project — officially titled, “Crowdsourced Observations for Ionospheric Model Validation and a Diagnostic Approach for Forecasting Equatorial Spread F” — is led by principal investigator Kornyanat “Kukkai” Hozumi, Ph.D., research scientist, with co-investigator Nathaniel Frissell, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and engineering.

“I’m very happy not only because, ‘Oh, we get an award, we get money.’ It’s not just that,” said Dr. Hozumi. “It’s a project that has impact on the real society and can help people to have safe and secure communication in the future. It can also help fulfill the HamSCI volunteers who contribute a lot to our HamSCI projects. Being that helpful to so many people at the same time — I feel very happy.”

HamSCI refers to the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation community, which was developed by Dr. Frissell and is supported by multiple six- and seven-figure grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA and other organizations. It is a worldwide group of licensed ham radio operators who gather and submit data to measure the effects of weather in the ionosphere.

“I didn’t know anything about HamSCI, at all, before I came to the United States,” said Dr. Hozumi, who was born in Thailand and educated in Japan. “Just before I started my position in 2023 with NASA CCMC (Community Coordinated Modeling Center) as a postdoc, my supervisor told me that my duty was to work on radio propagation and to use HamSCI data.”

From there, Dr. Hozumi was introduced to the world of HamSCI and to Dr. Frissell and was ultimately hired at the University in 2024. She works remotely in Utah.

This project will combine HamSCI community-contributed observations with physics-based modeling to serve multiple purposes, including creating a repeatable way to test and improve ionospheric forecasts and providing framework to evaluate performance and track improvements over time. Strengthening the reliability of systems used for communication, navigation and situational awareness is a boost for national resilience and public safety.

In a second, equally important effort, the team will also try to identify early warning signs of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPBs). EPBs can interfere with critical signals, including GPS and long-distance radio, most often after sunset and sometimes into the early morning in equatorial and low-latitude regions. This interference can make it more difficult for phones, planes, ships and emergency responders to know if they are connected. On an ionogram, a chart that shows how radio waves travel through the ionosphere, EPBs may appear as Equatorial Spread F (ESF) — a spread-out pattern that can cause long-distance high-frequency radio signals to fade, distort or disconnect.

“My job is to use HamSCI data to make sure that the ionospheric model is precise,” Dr. Hozumi said. “And, if not, why?”

For more information about HamSCI, whose next workshop will be held March 14-15 at Central Connecticut State University, please visit its website.