Kentucky space grant consortium (ksgc), a diverse group of 28 affiliates across the state, uses a portfolio-of-programs approach and best practices to set students and faculty on pathways of…

This federal contract award, identified as 80NSSC20M0047, was issued by the Shared Services Center on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Kentucky Research Foundation (the Research Foundation), a non-profit subsidiary of the University of Kentucky. The $4,267,101.00 cooperative agreement will fund the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium's (KSGC) portfolio of STEM education and training programs for the 2020-2024 period. KSGC, a diverse group of 28 affiliates across the state, aims to set students and faculty on pathways towards aerospace-related career goals and contribute to a skilled, high-performing, and diverse workforce to meet NASA's emerging needs. The award does not utilize any set-aside designations. The programs funded include NASA internships, fellowships, team projects, and mini-grants that support both higher education and pre-college initiatives aligned with NASA's mission directorates.

Kentucky space grant consortium (ksgc), a diverse group of 28 affiliates across the state, uses a portfolio-of-programs approach and best practices to set students and faculty on pathways of opportunities towards aerospace-related career goals, with a goal of contributing to a skilled, high-performing and diverse workforce that meets the emerging needs of NASA and kentucky. Ksgc programs engage competitively-selected participants in stem education and training primarily at the post-secondary level, with complementary pipeline pre-college programs. Diversity of students, faculty and institutional types is essential and integral to this approach. Purposeful efforts are made to reach potential participants and inspire them to enter and persist along their pathway of opportunities. NASA mission directorate (armd, heomd, SMD, stmd) and ostem alignment is required for all programs. Funding for the 2020-2024 space grant cycle will be used to implement the ksgc programs and themes described in the following proposal: NASA internships and fellowships (nifs), including NASA center internships (NCI) and kentucky industry internships (KII), along with graduate fellowships (GF) and research experience for undergraduates (REU) offer a flexible set of hands-on NASA-aligned training to establish individual student pathways of opportunities. For internships, the intern's effort is guided by a NASA or industry mentor and serves to advance the student's knowledge, to provide the experience of working with technical professionals in support of NASA's missions or with established or startup aerospace companies in kentucky. Graduate fellowships and research experience for undergraduates projects provide 1-on-1 research-based training and interaction with an advisor, including stipend, materials, travel, and tuition for graduate students. Higher education funding is a primary ksgc objective designed to support competitive awards in multiple areas of resource needs for ksgc higher education institutions. Team projects (TP) support faculty-mentored experiences focused on authentic, hands-on design in science and engineering to inspire innovation, including participation in team competitions and flight opportunities. Enhanced mini-grants (EMG) support a wide-array of postsecondary projects aligned with kentucky and NASA priorities under higher education goals. Research initiation awards (RIA) support early-career faculty proposing research and building NASA connections as one entry point to the NASA KY faculty pathway of opportunity, where faculty can apply for increasingly-challenging research awards to hone their proposal and research skills, and develop student-mentoring abilities. Pre-college education programs provide educational opportunities at sites across kentucky to attract and retain students, as well as develop educator content knowledge in NASA-related stem disciplines. Mini-grants (MG) provide a wide variety of pre-college opportunities including stem camps and competitions, k-12 teacher training, as well as museum-based astronomy and aerospace programs. Enhanced mini-grants (EMG) support a wide-array of projects aligned with kentucky and NASA priorities under pre-college objectives. Three current strategic themes chosen by the consortium are data + science, earth + space, and aerospace + innovation. These themes enable multiple programs to be unified in a portfolio approach that can be balanced to serve an array of state and national aerospace needs through competitive selection and careful management of project awards. Program evaluation data is drawn from two primary sources: NASA kentucky student information forms (SIF) and PI reports of project results, including numbers of participants, publications, and presentations. Program data is reported to NASA via oepm and APD. Program evaluation uses smart metrics such as diversity and number of awards.