Ecovia Renewables LLC, a renewable chemicals company developing high performance bio-based materials, received an NSF STTR Phase I grant of $225,000 for their proposal "STTR Phase I:  Cost-effective production of biopolymers for eco-friendly erosion control and soil revegetation with synthetic microbial consortia." The proposed project will be carried out in collaboration with Professor Xiaoxia Nina Lin’s lab at the University of Michigan.