College of Engineering | January 11, 2022

UTEP receives $1.1M grant from Department of Energy to educate next generation of students in electrical and nuclear engineering, cybersecurity, and information security roles

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to prepare students to enter the National Security Enterprise (NSE) workforce.

The Department of Energy’s Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (MSIPP) awarded this prestigious three-year grant to establish the Consortium for Research and Education in Power and Energy Systems (CREPES) for Sustainable STEM Workforce. CREPES is a collaborative effort led by Florida International University (FIU), UTEP, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) and two NNSA National Labs: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). This collaboration focuses on recruitment, retention, research, training, and mentoring of students and researchers in the core area of interest for NNSA.

“This award will make an important contribution to the efforts in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to provide opportunities for our students and develop the skills and knowledge to engage in state-of-the-art research in electric power and energy and in cyber physical systems,” said Miguel Velez-Reyes, chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “These are areas of high demand by employers in the region and across the nation.”

The team at UTEP is led by Paras Mandal, Ph.D., and Sai Mounika Errapotu, Ph.D., associate professor and assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“CREPES is a unique consortium having Cyber-Energy Systems platform to strengthen the research and education capabilities of MSIs in smart power grid and cyber-physical system, and this program will take steps towards boosting minority representation in electrical and computer engineering”, said Mandal.

CREPES is among twenty-four NNSA consortiums across the nation, and focuses on electric power, energy systems and nuclear engineering education. Through CREPES at UTEP, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students will receive training and practical experience needed to thrive in the high-demand fields of electrical power and energy, nuclear engineering, and cyber-physical system security.