Glendale Community College gets $300K in funding from NASA

PHOENIX — Glendale Community College’s biology department recently received a $297,537 grant from NASA that will empower students with lab training from expert scientists and the opportunity to publish research findings in peer-reviewed journals.

All students earning the funding will be selected based on “financial need and academic merit” and will be a part of a two-year astrobiology project done in cooperation with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, according to a press release.

While NASA scientists will travel to the two-year college in Glendale, the funding has made travel to the flight center in Huntsville a possibility for students.

The proposed project from GCC faculty member James Tuohy will “investigate the survival strategies of certain microorganisms” that have thrived in conditions of “the low orbit of the International Space Station and beyond.”

Tuohy and his students will conduct simulations of the space station conditions in an effort to answer if there might be “interplanetary transfer of life via space dust, meteoroids, comets or even cosmic exploration,” the release said.

The grant was generated via the Mentorship and Opportunities in STEM with Academic Institutions for Community Success (MOSAICS) program.

GCC offers many different degree specializations within its biology department, such as developmental biology, genetics and microbiology.

In April, the school located at 59th and Olive avenues also broke ground on an innovation lab, which will be a cross-disciplinary hub for its computer science, engineering technology and artificial intelligence programs. The lab is expected to be completed in April 2026.

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