UT Tyler Awarded $100,000 NASA Grant to Understand Plants’ Responses

Shawana Tabassum, PhD

The University of Texas at Tyler announced that it has been awarded a $100,000 grant by NASA to advance the fundamental understanding of plants in spaceflight-like environments. Dr. Shawana Tabassum, UT Tyler assistant professor of electrical engineering, will serve as the principal investigator for the project.

Tabassum’s research focuses on flexible and wearable sensors, electronics, micro/nano-optics, microfluidic devices, and their applications in plant sciences, biomedicine and sustainable environments.

“Our central hypothesis is that real-time data collected on plant responses can be used to determine the fundamental ways plants interact with microclimatic conditions associated with living in space,” said Tabassum.