Calendar Year 2026: Funded Initiatives & Grant Portfolio

MAE department connects elite R1 research with transformative student success. Our grant portfolio reflects a variety of federal, institutional, and corporate funding that generates fundamental discoveries and steers our technical innovations while aiding in the social mobility of our student body.

• Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); Combined Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Canonical Scramjet Engine Inlet Flow with Focus on Boundary Layer Transition; Dr. Gross; $209,834 (NMSU amount; Dr. Ozawa is the primary PI)

• Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); Physics-Informed Reinforcement Learning-based Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Flow Control; Dr. Liu; $475,077

• Army Research Office (ARO); Numerical Investigation of Airfoil-Airfoil Interaction at Transitional Reynolds Number; Dr. Gross; $306,349

• Arrowhead Center, NMSU; Student Internship (Graduate Research Assistantship) (Christopher Lucero); Dr. Kuravi

• Department of Energy (DOE); The Establishment of a Building Training and Assessment Center at New Mexico State University; Dr. Abdelkefi; $900,000 (Dr. Sullivan is the primary PI)

• DOD STEM NDEP; Manufacturing Certification to Degree (C2D) Consortium; Dr. Drach; $600,000

• Institute for Applied Practice in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; Bridging Simulation and Reality: A Zero-Shot AI Framework for Scalable Automation in Robotic Agriculture; Dr. Park; $25,000

• Los Alamos National Lab (LANL); Environmental testing of structures workforce development and training program; Dr. Abdelkefi; $2,000,000

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Manufacturing and Mechanical Properties of Carbon/Phenolic Ablators; Dr. Torres-Herrador; $125,000

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (Science Mission Directorate, Research Initiation Awards); Muscle-Driven Limbless Robot Locomotion for Planetary Extreme Access Environment; Dr. Haghshenas-Jaryani; $299,923

• National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); The Rio Grande Consortium for Advanced Research on Exascale Simulation; Dr. Kota; $650,000 (NMSU amount; UNM is the primary institution; $5M)

• National Science Foundation (NSF); I-Corps – Translation Potential of Low-cost, Low-maintenance Privacy Glass; Dr. Kota; $50,000

• National Science Foundation (NSF I-Corps); Low-Cost, Low-Maintenance Privacy Glass; Dr. Kuravi; $50,000

• NNSA/LANL through New Mexico Consortium Inc.; Structural characterization of dynamical systems: from simulations and laboratory testing to production; Dr. Abdelkefi; $17,000

• NNSA/LANL through New Mexico Consortium Inc.; Structural characterization of dynamical systems: from simulations and laboratory testing to production; Dr. Abdelkefi; $399,999

• NSF Regional I-Corps Hub, Lineage Launch program (Arrowhead Center); Persistent Antimicrobial Surfaces; Dr. Kuravi; $2,000

• NSF RIO-NM; STEM Fellows Program (Catherine Scott); Dr. Kuravi

• NSF RIO-NM; STEM Fellows Program (Kieley Piermont); Dr. Kuravi

• New Mexico AMP; Summer Community College Opportunity for Research Experience (SCCORE) (Javier Rincon-Troitiño); Dr. Kuravi

• New Mexico AMP; Undergraduate Research Scholars (Fabrizio Zuniga Ruiz); Dr. Kuravi

• New Mexico Consortium, Plutonium Workforce Development Institutional Partnership Program (PWDI); PWDI Phase 3; Dr. Chaitanya; $2,800,000

• New Mexico Consortium, Plutonium Workforce Development Institutional Partnership Program (PWDI); PWDI Phase 3 (Engineering Excellence for National Security: Shaping the Future Workforce for Plutonium Mission Support at New Mexico State University); Dr. Drach; $400,000

• New Mexico Consortium, Plutonium Workforce Development Institutional Partnership Program (PWDI); PWDI Phase 3 Supplement; Dr. Drach; $20,000

• New Mexico Consortium, Plutonium Workforce Development Institutional Partnership Program (PWDI); PWDI Phase 3b (Engineering Excellence for National Security: Shaping the Future Workforce for Plutonium Mission Support at New Mexico State University); Dr. Drach; $120,000

• New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program (NMSBA); Characterization of Heat Storage Materials for Thermal Batteries; Dr. Kuravi; $3,000

• New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program (NMSBA); Novel Heat Exchanger Surfaces; Dr. Kuravi; $40,000

• New Mexico Space Grant Consortium; Undergraduate Fellowship (Sabrina Montoya); Dr. Haghshenas-Jaryani

• New Mexico Space Grant Consortium; Joule-Heated and Oxygen Plasma Source; Dr. Torres-Herrador; $20,000

• New Mexico Space Grant Consortium; Supersonic Indraft Wind Tunnel for Aerospace Research and Workforce Development; Dr. Gross; $100,000

• Sandia National Laboratories; Performance envelope and nonlinear dynamics of aerospace structures; Dr. Abdelkefi; $400,000

• Sandia National Laboratories; ReHEAT: Experimental Study of Internal Thermo-Chemical Response of Ablators by Means of a Laser-Heated Facility; Dr. Torres-Herrador; $300,000

• United States Department of Agriculture / National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA) (Agriculture and Food Research Initiative); Robot-Enabled Soil and Crops Monitoring for Precision Agriculture and Water Management in NM Green Chile Pepper Farming; Dr. Haghshenas-Jaryani; $727,981

• USDA; Training of Next Generation Workforce for Smart Food Science and Agricultural Technology in the Digital Era (WorkFoS-Ag); Dr. Park; $500,000