NASA awards $900,000 grant to College of the Desert
College of the Desert is now one of two community colleges in the nation to be awarded a $900k from the Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP or M-Star) grant program.
The M-Star program was created by NASA to provide multi-year grants for research and future space exploration to underrepresented populations in the STEM field.
COD student, David Jackson, and faculty members, Dr. Ahmed Elshafie, Dr. Amira Elsenousy and Professor Michael Gariety, collaborated on their grant-winning project “A Penetrolzer for Extracting Oxygen and Hydrogen from Mars Regolith.”
The team says that the grant will contribute to NASA's future exploration of Mars by the 2030s in their pursuit of finding ways to make the planet more sustainable for humans.
The community is invited to a presentation on Friday, Nov. 3 to learn more about the project and how the grant will benefit the current and future students.
The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m in the Math/Science Building (MSTC) in Room 250.
