Maryland space grant consortium (mdsgc) was one of the first seventeen space grants selected by NASA in 1989

Thirty years later we are today even more committed to our space grant work and excited about our future activities! We propose to continue our mission to inspire and support rising maryland students and to encourage their development in mathematics science engineering and technology with the aim of strengthening america s and especially NASA s workforce in areas that will be critical for our future and with a focus on the needs of NASA s four mission directorates. Mdsgc has carefully tuned our organizational structure and programmatic approach to fill a unique and vital role in maryland s space science and engineering education landscape. Because of the abundance of NASA-funded research in maryland as well as the local importance of the aerospace business sector mdsgc has chosen to concentrate on activities that provide hands-on learning experiences for students and act to develop the future workforce for the aerospace community in general and NASA in particular. Improving the diversity of the future workforce has always been a special focus for mdsgc and we have had excellent success in recruiting strong candidates from groups underrepresented in stem. We engage students with NASA s mission through a suite of core activities that we support on an ongoing basis. These include our summer internship and scholarship programs our high-altitude balloon payload program and the operation of the mdsgc observatory. Outside of these core activities we reserve a substantial portion of our yearly budget for awarding via a competitive proposal process that is overseen by our program committee. Our proposal opportunities are open to all maryland institutions and individuals. We emphasize undergraduate research and hands-on learning opportunities collaboration across institutions and disciplines and support for women and members of minorities underrepresented in stem we enable projects otherwise lacking funding avenues and we work to maintain a broad geographical footprint for our activities that stretches from the western maryland panhandle to the eastern shore of the chesapeake BAY. The goal of linking students from diverse maryland educational institutions with NASA and NASA-aligned opportunities has been our great privilege over the decades and we hope and desire to continue that work far into the future.