About Us
The Center for Advanced Nanoscale Materials (CANM) is an interdisciplinary and multicampus
research and education University Research Center (URC) partnership project between NASA and the University of Puerto Rico. CANM-NASA-URC will bring together thirteen researchers from three different campuses and four different departments to work on research projects relevant to NASA in collaboration with NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in areas that correspond primarily to the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and secondarily to the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
CANM-NASA-URC will make a strong contribution to the objectives of the NASA Education portfolio assigned to URCs: Faculty and Research Support, Student Support, and Targeted Institution Research and Academic Infrastructure. CANM-NASA-URC will improve the ability of three Hispanic-serving institutions strategically distributed across the Jurisdiction to enhance their research competency in areas of relevance to NASA and compete for NASA research and development work. The research to be undertaken by CANM-NASA-URC is organized into four Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) aligned with the NASA Vision for Space Exploration: Life Support Systems; Advanced High Energy Materials; Non-Carbon Based Sensors; and Carbon-Based Sensors and Bio-Sensors. A mechanism will be implemented to advance the evolution of research projects along the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale from TRL 1 to 3 in coordination and collaboration with NASA and JPL scientists. Projects reaching TRL 3 will be jointly evaluated to determine whether they merit to be developed into TRL 4 and above by transferring them to a NASA Center or JPL. Innovation, testbeds, and commercialization will be fostered by CANM-NASA-URC, while supporting research students and faculty research projects.