The Delaware Space Grant Consortium (DESGC) held its annual research symposium on Friday, April 7, at the University of Delaware 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.

This year there were approximately 50 attendees, including faculty representatives from several affiliate institutions.

Research talks were presented by graduate students from the UD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Delaware State University and Wesley College, and by undergraduate researchers from UD’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wesley College and Wilmington University.

Talks also were presented by DESGC associate directors Xiao-Hai Yan, Mary A. S. Lighthipe Professor in UD’s School of Marine Science and Policy and a recipient of DESGC Research in Development funding, and Hacene Boukari, associate professor of physics and engineering at Delaware State University.

In addition, Nancy Ventresca, an advanced academics teacher at Marshall Elementary School in Newark, spoke of her experiences at two pre-college educator workshops.

The research symposium is one of numerous activities sponsored by the DESGC, of which the University of Delaware is the lead institution.

The director of DESGC is the William Matthaeus, Unidel Professor of Physics and Astronomy in UD’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the Space Grant office is on the second floor of Sharp Laboratory.

About Space Grant

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 U.S. citizens in the areas of interest to the agency’s missions. These areas include science, technology, engineering, mathematics – the STEM fields.

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: UD, 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 $5,000 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, 11 undergraduate summer researchers, and nine 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 on Facebook, 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 DESGC Advisory Group, including faculty members in the colleges of Engineering (Bingqing Wei, mechanical engineering); Earth, Ocean, and Environment (Xiao-Hai Yan); and Arts and Sciences (Tracy DeLiberty, geography, and James MacDonald, Michael A. Shay and Harry L. Shipman, 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.