Grant bolsters STEM pipeline that connects AC students to WTAMU

Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe, Distinguished Research Scientist at Amarillo College, is pleased to announce the acquisition of a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation likely to bolster the flow of AC STEM scholars to West Texas A&M University.

Ranasinghe said the $75,000 grant will be used to obtain an Ice Nucleation Cold Stage, an instrument for researching and teaching cloud microphysics in science and engineering classes. The NSF earmarked these particular funds to benefit minority-serving institutions.

AC’s enrollment, which is approximately 46 percent Hispanic/Latinx, has been designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Ice Nucleation Cold Stage will be housed within WTAMU’s Engineering Department, where some of Ranasinghe’s AC STEM students are already working as research assistants. The high-tech instrument will be used, in part, to mimic ice nucleation that takes place in the upper atmosphere, which is essential for studying and measuring contaminants and pollutants that form therein. Additionally, research outreach activities will be conducted for AC students this summer at the university.

Ranasinghe said the University of California—Riverside is also involved in the collaboration and will move its similar cold-storage instrument to the WT location.

“This grant is an extension of a $300,000 NSF grant we received previously and will further enhance the academic research collaborations that are already underway between AC and WT,” Ranasinghe said. “We’ve already created a pipeline that’s propelling some of our STEM students to the university, and this will certainly strengthen our students’ opportunities not only to advance their studies, but to potentially garner internships or research assistantships at WT.”

The research collaboration with WT works both ways, Ranasinghe noted: in addition to the matriculation of AC students to WT, graduate students from the university commonly conduct research at AC’s STEM Research Center, which is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment like a mass spectrometer and a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) detection system.

Leading the collaboration’s efforts at WTAMU are Dr. Naruki Hiranuma, associate professor of environmental science, and Dr. Sanjoy Bhattacharia, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

“We have an excellent relationship with the engineering and science programs at WT, and sharing our assets is vitally important for the students we collectively serve,” Ranasinghe said. “Grants like these, and the collaborative research that results from them, are extremely beneficial to everyone connected to our programs.”