Grant Will Let Students Study Space Program Equipment

Cal State Northridge has been awarded a $2-million NASA grant that will give minority students an opportunity to study how to prevent failures in electronic equipment used in space programs, officials said Friday.

The four-year research grant is one of the most important awarded to the school in recent years, said Bezad Bavarian, a professor in the university’s department of manufacturing systems, engineering and management and the project’s principal investigator.

Each year, fellowships will be awarded to 12 to 14 full-time engineering and physics students, Bavarian said.

Research at Cal State Northridge will be done under the auspices of the Materials Science Research Center, which was recently established to foster cooperation among the engineering and physics faculty and students.

Students will work with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Bavarian said, and present their findings at conferences. They will be mentored by faculty members and also will work with visiting scientists and scholars, he said.