The Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology partnership, which has been around for 20 years now, has renewed its cooperative agreement with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, bringing up to $46 million to JCET and UMBC over the next five years.
JCET has brought leading scientists to UMBC in research areas that support NASA’s earth science interests, such as climate and radiation, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, and solar system sciences, including geophysics. UMBC is now ranked among the world’s top universities for geosciences according to the 2015 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities.
JCET has contributed to both undergraduate and graduate teaching through courses and seminars across many subjects, including the departments of physics, geography, environmental systems, chemistry, mathematics and statistics. JCET faculty led the formation of UMBC’s internationally recognized atmospheric physics program, and graduate students in JCET work both at UMBC and on-site at NASA Goddard.
Belay Demoz, director of JCET, said, “the work that goes on in JCET is an excellent example of UMBC’s commitment to strengthening the campus’ education and research efforts through national partnerships. JCET’s establishment at UMBC has paved the way for many other collaborations with NASA and other agencies.”
“More importantly, through this unique partnership with NASA-Goddard, UMBC will continue to emphasize both research and education as part of the core values of the institution,” said Demoz. “More undergraduate students will be hired as interns and graduate students working on specific projects will be hired by JCET and NASA after graduation.”
In addition to this, the JCET faculty are working on formulating a course that they can teach on campus. This will allow students to interact face-to-face with the scientists who work at NASA.
