Munday Wins NASA Early Career Award

Clark School Assistant Professor Jeremy Munday (electrical and computer engineering) has received a NASA Space Technology Research Opportunities for Early Career Faculty award for "Radiation Pressure on Tunable Optical Metamaterials for Propulsion and Steering Without Moving Parts." This is the working principle behind solar sails, a form of propulsion for deep space exploration.

This is the inaugural year for the awards. Munday was one of 10 researchers selected across the nation.

The awardees will conduct research in areas closely aligned with NASA's Space Technology Roadmaps and priorities identified by the National Research Council. These priorities include extending and sustaining human activities beyond low Earth orbit, exploring the evolution of the solar system and potential for life elsewhere, and expanding our understanding of Earth and the universe.

NASA's Early Career Faculty efforts are an element of the agency's Space Technology Research Grants Program. It is designed to accelerate the development of technologies originating from academia that support the future science and exploration needs of NASA, other government agencies and the commercial space sector.

For more information, read the press release on the NASA web site.

Published August 16, 2012