New Astrobiology Institutes announced

The NASA Astrobiology Institute has announced the selection of the new Centers chosen in response to the 5th Co-operative Agreement Notice.
Ten centers were funded, joining the 4 pre-existing centers from CAN-4.

Here is the announcement

The new centers are:

• University of Hawaii
• Arizona State University
• Carnegie Institution of Washington
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution
• Pennsylvania State University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• NASA Ames
• NASA Goddard
• JPL I
• JPL II

Yay us!
Disclaimer: I am a co-PI of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center.
PSARC - the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center is not to be confused with the Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, of which I am a member.
The two do have a finite proper interesection but should not be considered improper subsets of each other.

The Astrobiology Centers are virtual members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and are typically funded for 5 years at the $1-2 million per year, each, depending on size and research emphasis.
The funding is for interdisciplinary research and to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration. It is very useful because it allows for long term student funding and funding for projects that are cross panels - stuff that panels selecting proposals in a particular subfield might have a hard time with because part of the research is in a different area from the panel's purview and expertise.

I joined the Penn State Center at end of its first five year selection to be a co-PI in the second round, and the most valuable aspect of the NAI Centers, in my personal experience, is that it forcesencourages us to talk to people in other fields and to actually communicate outside our immediate circle of colleagues.
Dangerous stuff, having beer with biologists, chit-chatting with geologists.

Hawaii, Carnegie, PSU, Ames and Goddard are renewal of pre-existing centers from the CAN-3 round.
Penn State was also funded in the first round, the CAN-1.

Four centers are currently funded from the 4th CAN selection: Montana State University, MIT, VPL at University of Washington and Wisconsin Madison.

At each selection, some previous teams are reselected, and others are not.
In this round we lost: Indiana, Marine Biological Laboratory, SETI Institute, University of Arizona, UC Berkeley, UCLA and University of Colorado Boulder.