WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), members of the Appropriations Committee, today announced $750,000 over three years for West Virginia University (WVU) through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Funding will support research into the effect of solar activity on Earth and will help enhance WVU’s growing research capabilities in the field of physics.
“The promise of NASA is that it enables us to pursue our wildest imaginations,” Senator Capito said. “As mountaineers, West Virginians have always striven for the next frontier, and the world-class researchers at WVU will help explore and explain the beauty of our solar system. This funding will support that research and enable WVU to continue to be a leading research institution through this century.”
“West Virginians have always played a major role in NASA’s developments and achievements, dating back to the contributions of “Hidden Figures” Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan and “Rocket Boys” Homer Hickam. West Virginia is also home to the IV&V Center in Fairmont and WVU has helped place numerous students at NASA facilities over the years. With this rich history, it’s no surprise that NASA has chosen to partner with WVU to help better understand solar activity, the earth’s magnetic field, and the relationship between the two. In the past five years, over 123 publications have been generated by West Virginia institutions because of the NASA EPSCoR program, helping lead to more than $21 million in additional research funding to West Virginia. This research will help ensure that the United States remains the world leader in both our ventures and understanding of space,” Senator Manchin said. “I am proud of WVU and interested to see what comes of their efforts.”
“We are gratified that an outstanding team of researchers from West Virginia University were able to put together a proposal that not only enhances WVU’s long-term capabilities but also advances the research interests of NASA in heliophysics. Our faculty and graduate students from the Physics Department will collaborate with NASA scientists in the next three years to better understand the causes of solar activities, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections,” said Dr. Majid Jaraid, the principal investigator of this NASA EPSCoR project and director of the NASA WV Space Grant Consortium.
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