NASA-funded research
Wesley hosts 10th annual Delaware Space Grant Research Symposium
7:58 a.m., April 14, 2016--The Delaware Space Grant Consortium, of which the University of Delaware is the lead institution, held its annual research symposium on April 8 at Wesley College in Dover to highlight research work that is being done by Delaware students with funding support from NASA.
Each year at the symposium, students present results, either orally or by poster, of the work they have performed under Space Grant auspices during the past year.
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This year there were approximately 50 attendees, including the newly appointed resident of Wesley College, Robert E. Clark, and faculty representatives from several affiliate institutions.
Research talks were presented by graduate students from UD’s departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Physics and Astronomy, and by a graduate student from Delaware State University’s optics department.
Additional talks were given by an undergraduate researcher from UD’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and by two Wesley faculty members, one a recipient of a NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development grant.
In addition, B. Chad Starks, a Delaware Space Grant Consortium associate director, gave a talk on diversity issues.
After the symposium, attendees were invited to attend a dedication of a state historical marker at the Annie Jump Cannon House on the Wesley campus, to honor this pioneering woman astronomer who was instrumental in development of the contemporary classification of stars.
In UD’s Sharp Laboratory is the Annie Jump Cannon conference room and Harry Shipman, an associate director of the consortium, is the Annie Jump Cannon Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
The research symposium is one of numerous activities sponsored by the consortium, of which the University of Delaware is the lead institution. The interim director of the consortium is William Matthaeus, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UD, and the Space Grant office is housed on the second floor of Sharp Lab.
About NASA’s Space Grant program
NASA’s Space Grant program was started by congressional mandate in 1989 in order to ensure that NASA would continue to have access to a well-trained workforce of US citizens in the areas of interest to the agency’s missions. These areas include science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the so-called STEM fields – and geography.
Each year since 1989, Congress has appropriated up to $40 million per year to NASA to administer the national Space Grant program. Within each state, a consortium of colleges, universities and industrial partners collaborate to award fellowships, scholarships and internships to deserving graduate and undergraduate students in the STEM areas. Space Grant funds are also used for in-service training of pre-college STEM teachers.
In Delaware, the consortium includes the following academic affiliates: University of Delaware, Delaware State University, all four campuses of Delaware Technical Community College, Wesley College, and Wilmington University.
U.S. citizens at any of these institutions are eligible to apply once every year for three types of funding: graduate fellowships (including a stipend of $27,600 per year), undergraduate tuition scholarships (up to $3,000 per year), and summer research internships (up to $4,000 on campus, and up to $6,000 at one of the 10 NASA Field Centers which are spread across the country). During the current year, consortium funds are supporting five graduate fellows, 12 undergraduate tuition scholars, 10 undergraduate summer researchers, and seven workshop participants.
Announcements of opportunities for fellowships, scholarships, and internships are circulated to all affiliates of the consortium in December-March each year. Information about Space Grant opportunities is available at the website and Facebook page, and informational flyers circulated throughout the state via an affiliate representative on each campus.
On the UD campus, information can be obtained from members of the Delaware Space Grant Consortium Advisory Group, including faculty members in the colleges of Engineering (Bingqing Wei, professor, mechanical engineering); Earth, Ocean, and Environment (Xiao-Hai Yan, Mary A.S. Lighthipe Professor of Marine Studies); and Arts and Sciences (Tracy DeLiberty, associate professor, geography, and James MacDonald, Michael A. Shay, and Harry L. Shipman, professors, physics and astronomy).
For further information about NASA’s Space Grant program in the state of Delaware, contact Cathy Cathell in the consortium office, Room 212 Sharp Laboratory on the UD campus in Newark, by email desgc@bartol.udel.edu or telephone 302-831-1094.
Photos of grant recipients by Kacy Cassat of Wesley College