The University of Wyoming has received seven grants adding up to $2,899,168 from NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
The Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium sponsors education and research programs in the state to support NASA’s research and missions, serving as a link between citizens of the state and NASA programs.
“The programs include research fellowships, internships for students at the University of Wyoming and Wyoming community colleges and scholarship programs for community college students in STEM majors,” Director of Wyoming NASA Space Grant and NASA EPSCoR Programs Dr. Shawna McBride said.
“As well as grants for college and university faculty, educational resources, and programs for Wyoming K-12 students and teachers.”
The EPSCoR program was created to help states with more rural populations, like Wyoming, to become more competitive in research and to help develop the research capacity of the state.
“The program was and is designed to assist in providing improvements in the state’s research infrastructure, research and development (R&D) capacity and its national research competitiveness,” McBride said.
“There are talented students and faculty across the US, so we need to make sure we are engaging and providing opportunities for everyone – you never know where the next big idea or breakthrough will come from.”
The Wyoming NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development Grant is a one-time $1,000,000, five year grant. This “base” funding is awarded to all jurisdictions and used for jurisdiction management, travel support for researchers and seed funding for research projects.
“The first goal with this grant is to facilitate an interdisciplinary, cohesive, collaborative group in materials science and engineering (MSE) at the University of Wyoming aimed at furthering NASA goals, meeting jurisdiction needs, and strengthening academic goals,” McBride said.
“The second goal is to assist in developing computer science and computational science-related research in Wyoming relevant to NASA Mission Directorate goals.”
The most recent NASA EPSCoR Competitive Research grant awarded to the University of Wyoming is entitled: Global to Regional: Origins of Water Stress (GROWS) and was submitted by Daniel McCoy and Dana Caulton from the Atmospheric Science Department.
McCoy and Caulton received a $749,696 grant from EPSCoR. The second Competitive Research grant called Artificially Intelligent Manufacturing of Flexible Electronics was awarded to Patrick Johnson, Lars Kotthoff and Shawna M. McBride, in the amount of $749,997.
There were additionally four Rapid Response Research Grants awarded around $100,000 each, for 1-year grants. These grants were focused on specific tasks identified at the NASA Centers or Mission Directorates rather than research in a general area of interest.
“The GROWS project will combine observations of water transport in the atmosphere with state-of-the-art climate predictions from models while leveraging existing NASA remote-sensing observations of moisture,” McBride said.
“This will be combined with observations of moisture from airborne measurements and surface stations. The project will utilize the dense data record of observations from the University of Wyoming King Air aircraft, along with data from unmanned aerial vehicles.”
All of the NASA EPSCoR projects in Wyoming support research in areas of interest to NASA and the state of Wyoming, with water scarcity and drought being one example.
Wyoming has had a NASA EPSCoR program in the state for close to 25 years, and UW continues to grow the program and support the development of NASA-related research and interests in the state for many years to come.
“With younger students, we aim to inspire and excite them, with college-age students, we try to engage them and encourage them to stay in STEM, and with all, we work to build confidence and skills in science, technology, engineering and math,” McBride said.
“Wyoming NASA Space Grant and NASA EPSCoR strive to connect people in Wyoming to NASA. We work to provide opportunities for students, teachers, faculty, and people of all ages in the state to learn more about NASA and engage in hands-on STEM experiences.”
