The awards will support projects designed to boost economic development in Western New York.
The $1.2 million NSF grant, plus another $500,000 from UB, will be used to create a research facility for self-driving and connected cars.
Five UB grad students' design for a custom-fit shoe earned the top spot in the international competition in Singapore.
The optics advancement may solve an approaching data bottleneck by helping to boost computing power and information transfer rates tenfold.
