NASA grant Archives

NSHE Secures $750,000 NASA EPSCoR Grant for Research into Underground Ecosystems That Could Inform the Search for Life Beyond Earth

By DRI Communications | Sep 18, 2025 | Announcements

The Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) has secured a $750,000 grant from NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) to study unique underground ecosystems powered by radiation instead of sunlight. The findings could help guide NASA’s search for life beneath the surfaces of Mars and icy worlds elsewhere in the solar system.

NASA grant funds research for sunscreen on Mars

Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno in collaboration with Henry Sun of the Desert Research Institute and Christopher McKay of the NASA Ames Research Center received a NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) seed grant to study how they can mimic biology to make some powerful sunscreen.