Project Grant 2429592

This $299,364 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Activities (IA) program will support a six-month fellowship for an associate professor at New Mexico State University (NMSU) to collaborate with researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). The fellowship aims to advance academic integration for hydrogen production by enabling the principal investigator (PI) to gain fuel cell and electrolyzer fabrication skills and access advanced characterization facilities at UCI. The project will establish new collaborations between NMSU and UCI, which are both designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and benefit the PI's career trajectory. The fellowship will also provide training opportunities for a postdoctoral researcher, as well as create pathways for NMSU students to work as summer interns or pursue graduate programs in the hydrogen and fuel cell industry. The project's key objectives are to achieve integration of knowledge, hands-on experimentation, industry collaboration, and academic programs to advance catalyst development and enable direct seawater splitting for scalable green hydrogen production.