UMBC and Morgan State awarded $66 million for NASA research program

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Two Baltimore-area universities have been awarded a total of $66 million by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to lead a consortium of institutions providing NASA with 120 high-quality researchers.

The program, called Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research, or GESTAR II, is the second iteration of a NASA initiative, first launched in 2011, that gives awards to universities and other organizations in exchange for those institutions to hire scientific talent to complete observational, theoretical and experimental earth science research for NASA.

GESTAR II will also give student researchers the opportunity to work alongside NASA scientists, boosting their resumes and setting them up for careers in earth science.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Morgan State University were respectively awarded $38 million and $28 million over three years to participate in GESTAR II, marking the first major collaboration between the two institutions, which are among the Baltimore region’s most prolific research universities.

Other institutions participating in the program are Colorado State University, Arizona State University and Pennsylvania State University, as well as Northrop Grumman Corporation, Earth Resources Technology Inc. and the Southeastern Universities Research Association.

UMBC’s partnership with NASA dates back to 1995, when the two institutions formed the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, a research institute focused on studying topics such as climate and radiation, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, and solar system sciences.

After 25 years, the funding for JCET will come to an end this fall. But much of JCET’s research faculty will continue to work with NASA and UMBC through GESTAR II, and the center’s director, Belay Demoz, a physics professor at UMBC, will stay on as director of GESTAR II.

“I am deeply grateful to everyone, especially our colleagues at Morgan State, who helped make this new partnership a reality,” said Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC, in a press release. “I am looking forward to seeing what breakthroughs in earth science will come from the collaborative work of the scientists, engineers and students — the leaders of tomorrow — who participate in GESTAR II.”

Morgan also has an existing relationship with NASA, having been a participant in the previous iteration of the GESTAR program. The university will provide approximately 40 researchers for GESTAR II, an increase from 18. The majority of Morgan’s GESTAR I cohort will continue into GESTAR II.

According to Willie May, vice president for research and economic development at Morgan, participating in the program has been an asset to the university over the past decade, expanding the school’s footprint in the field of earth science and providing students with unique research opportunities.

Now, with the university’s role in the program expanding, May anticipates that GESTAR’s impact on Morgan will continue to expand.

“We played a much smaller role in the GESTAR program than we will in GESTAR II. We see ourselves as being a partner in GESTAR II. We are a true partner with UMBC in delivering this program for NASA,” May said. “At Morgan, that really gives us many opportunities. First, it gives us an opportunity to work with NASA in delivering their mission. It allows us to expose our students to first-class, mission-driven research in the chemistry, physics and engineering domains in support of our country.”

Morgan even has plans to launch an earth and space sciences minor, housed in the school’s physics department, next fall, in part in hopes of improving the school’s ability to serve NASA.

“We need to do that so we can have better prepared students,” said May.