NASA FINESST Competition Awards

EAS Students awarded grants in the NASA FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology) competition. FINESST is an annual NASA funding opportunity where graduate students act as “future investigators” and are functionally PIs on their own research proposals (draft the proposals, work with ORA to submit them, etc.). The applications are fairly intensive and time consuming (the solicitation document alone is 33 pages). It’s technically a grant, not a fellowship, and so provides great experience for early career scientists. A successful applicant can request and receive up to $135,000 USD over three years in a research grant.

For this year’s competition, NASA received 835 proposals, of which 130 were successful. More specifically to the NASA “Earth Science” Division, 351 proposals were received, and only 58 proposals were selected. Of those 58 proposals, two were from Earth and Atmospheric Sciences students, and one was from SPEA here at IU.

Other Awards and Honors