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Students from Wyoming will have an opportunity this week to hear from NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station during the state’s first Earth-to-space call.

NASA astronaut Steve Bowen will answer prerecorded questions from students living in Laramie, Wyoming. The event is hosted by the Wyoming Space Grant consortia, the University of Wyoming, and the local Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.

The agency aired the downlink live at 10:25 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 19, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

Read the full article on the NASA website.

Author Credit: Katherine Brown

Image Credit: NASA

It’s incredible how much space exploration research begins at Boise State. In keeping with a long tradition, two Broncos brought home prestigious NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium fellowships in 2022.

The fellowships provide funding for students to conduct research, attend conferences and participate in other STEM-related activities related to NASA’s mission – developing new technologies and advancing scientific knowledge.

Doctoral student Cyrus Koroni from Inglewood, California, and undergraduate Ally Almaraz from Caldwell, Idaho, study in the College of Engineering’s Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering, but are tackling different areas of space exploration with their research.

Read the full article on Boise State News.

Author and Image Credit: Boise State News

Ziyad Muflahi is enjoying his second stint at Wayne State University much more than his first.

Muflahi initially came to Wayne State as an undergraduate but struggled due to personal reasons. He was, he said, “kicked out for poor performance.”

Community college helped him turn things around academically, and he went on to earn his bachelor’s degree. Now, Muflahi is back at Wayne State — this time as a Ph.D. student studying industrial-organizational psychology.

He was recently awarded one of NASA’s Michigan Space Grant Consortium’s Graduate Fellowships for his project titled “Long-distance Space Exploration Teams and Cognitive Integration.”

Read the full article on the Wayne State University Website.

Author Credit: Dave Pemberton

Image Credit: WSU

Five Wesleyan University faculty and students were announced as recipients of grants from the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium.

“I would say that these awards are a wonderful example of the broad range of research areas and activities that occur at Wesleyan. We are lucky to have such exciting research, active faculty, and motivated students, and Wesleyan always does very well. I am grateful that these NASA CT Space Grant funds enable wonderful activities here at Wesleyan,” said Seth Redfield, professor of astronomy.

Candice Etson, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a Faculty STEM Education Research Grant for her project Supporting Spatial Thinking to Improve Physics Learning. Meng-ju Renee Sher, assistant professor of physics, received a Faculty STEM Education Programming Grant for the Wesleyan Girls in Science Summer Camp.

Read the full article on the Wesleyan University website.

Author Credit: https://www.wesleyan.edu/

The Arkansas Space Grant Consortium board voted to fund Dr. Gija Geme, Dr. Tim Schroeder of chemistry, and Dr. Copie Moore of agriculture on a joint venture to explore the feasibility of growing crops such as soybeans, corn, lettuce, kale, and more, in a Mars soil simulant that is improved with fertilizer to add micronutrients. The team received $50,000 from NASA funding through Arkansas Space Grant Consortium in the spring of 2023.

This project aims to measure heavy metal uptake by plants using Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Spectroscopy analysis. The soil on Mars is almost entirely made up of mineral matter with small amounts of water and no organic matter. NASA’s Mars rover, Curiosity, showed that the mineral matter in Martian soil comes from the weathered volcanic rock of mineralogy similar to weathered basaltic soils of volcanic origin in Hawaii. Martian soil is reddish and sandy overall because it contains a significant amount of iron oxides (rust) throughout the planet’s surface since global dust storms move and redistribute the soil. The toxically high concentration of heavy metals in the soil will be reflected by higher concentrations of metals in plants.

Read the full article on the Southern Arkansas University website.

Author Credit: https://web.saumag.edu/

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) – Emily Shupe, a rising junior at Bluefield State University, has been awarded a NASA West Virginia Space Grant research award and is also being considered for early admission into the West Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM).

She received the grant under the supervision of Professor Tesfaye Belay, and the grant will allow Shupe to continue her work researching a bacterium that can infect astronauts during space flight. “I submitted an essay describing my research and the steps involved in conducting the research,” she explained.

Read the full article on wvva.com.

Author Credit: Kassidy Brown

Image Credit: WVVA News

Three Utah State University engineering students were awarded funding on behalf of the Utah Space Grant Consortium for internships this past summer.

Adam Weaver, a recent graduate student at USU studying mechanical engineering with an emphasis in aerospace engineering, and Payton Taylor, a senior also studying mechanical engineering with an emphasis in aerospace engineering, received $6,200 each for their internships at Northrop Grumman. They worked in the propulsion systems department for four months.

“I was very thankful for this opportunity and excited that I was a recipient,” Weaver said. “The internship was a great experience.”

Read the full article online at USU.edu.

Author Credit: Sydney Dahle | Public Relations Specialist | College of Engineering | Utah State University

Photo Credit: NASA

Three outstanding Arizona State University students with a passion for advancing our understanding of space will soon have the opportunity to extend their academic pursuits beyond the classroom by conducting cutting-edge research and contributing to groundbreaking initiatives that hold the promise of shaping our future in space.

Lindsey Tober, Elizabeth Garayzar and Matthew Marquez have each been selected as recipients of prestigious internship grants from the ASU/NASA Space Grant office, a member of the Arizona Space Grant Consortium.

Read the full article online at News.ASU.edu.

A solar spectacle will cross the sky this weekend when an annular eclipse known as the “ring of fire” appears across the western hemisphere.

Known as the “ring of fire” thanks to shape of circular light created by the partial eclipse, the event is expected to occur this Saturday, Oct. 14, and travel from the coast of Oregon to the Texas Gulf Coast, according to NASA.

The distinct annular eclipse is different from a total eclipse, the next of which is expected to occur in April, and will be the last opportunity for people in the states to catch a glimpse of a ring of fire for a number of years.

Read the full article on USAToday.com

Author Credit: Mary Walrath-Holdridge | USA TODAY

Image Credit: Shuji Kajiyama, AP

NASA is on the quest for a better battery — one that is lighter, longer lasting and able to survive the extreme temperatures found in space — and a Clemson graduate student’s research could help lay the groundwork.

Alan Rowland, a graduate student in the Clemson University Department of Physics and Astronomy, has received a prestigious NASA SC Space Grant fellowship to explore the role nitrogen plays in sulfurized polymer-based lithium-sulfur batteries.

Read the full article online at News.Clemson.edu

Author & Image Credit: Clemson University College of Science