New Mexico State University (NMSU) has announced that Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Joe Burchett, has secured a research fellowship at NASA facilities. This opportunity is due to a collaboration between NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Track-4 awards have allocated funding totaling $2.7 million for 10 selected projects, including Burchett's research.
Burchett will engage in a collaboration with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He is expected to dedicate approximately two months during the spring to this partnership. During this period, he will receive mentorship from the head of Goddard's X-ray astrophysics science program. According to an NMSU press release, Burchett's project, titled "Bluer and Hotter: From Ultraviolet to X-ray Diagnostics of the Circumgalactic Medium," aims to utilize X-ray astronomy to explore the hot, dense gas enveloping the Milky Way.
"It’s an opportunity for early career scientists to try to improve the research infrastructure, particularly at institutions like NMSU," Burchett said in an NMSU press release. "It’s a way for us to reinforce research opportunities at our institutions by doing things like diversifying our portfolio of scientific methods and that's what I'm doing here."
The mission of NSF's EPSCoR program is enhancing the research competitiveness of specific jurisdictions such as states, territories or commonwealths. This goal is achieved by strengthening capacity and capabilities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through a broad range of investments that include talent development and local infrastructure strengthening. This information was provided on the EPSCoR webpage by NSF.
"With access to NASA facilities and equipment, research investigators from EPSCoR jurisdictions will be able to solve challenging problems and solidify lifelong research partnerships," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "This dual agency partnership will also help diversify the U.S. workforce through collaborative research at a federal government level and improve the research capacity of their home institutions and jurisdictions more broadly."
