The university of Texas at el Paso and four of its engineering students have received the Public Service Group Achievement Award from NASA for their outstanding accomplishments in a project that has made significant contributions to the nation's space program. UTEP was the only university recognized with the honor, award this year to only 12 groups during the recent Johnson Space Center's annual NASA Honor Awards Ceremony.

The university and students from the College of Engineering work on engineering tasks for NASA normally conducted by Boeing employees. The program cultivates technical talent and potential employees through challenging projects, and is helping achieve NASA`s and Boeing's goals of involving underrepresented minorities in their work.

Students Bravilio Guzman, John F. Langdon, Milton Duran and Michael Everett developed software that allows space station researchers to input, view and search data to various experiments. The application they created can also upload data into PDF documents. They four had complete responsibility for the projects, from design to delivery. They completed the project in 2005. " The opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the Boeing engineers gave students an excellent real-life work experience," said Hilario Gamez, regional director of the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center at UTEP, which managed the project with the students.

Trough their partnership with UTEP, Boeing and NASA are hoping to develop students into engineers with skills needed to achieve the nation's space exploration vision.

"We were very impressed with the performance and professionalism of UTEP students on this project, "said Wayne Musial, manager of ISS Avionics & Software Consolidates Laboratories. "This partnership has proven beneficial for both Boeing and the university, and we are looking at future opportunities to work with students on other projects."