Research Centers and Facilities
Aerospace Center
The Aerospace Center expanding vision is powered by partnerships with local and federal government agencies, national laboratories, industry leaders and community organizations, to drive aerospace breakthroughs in space systems, hypersonic vehicles, AI-driven materials research, and more.
Our mission extends beyond labs. Through this ecosystem, we empower our students to become aerospace pioneers. We push the boundaries of discovery through hands-on research, and a design build test cycle. undergraduates and graduate students alike gain real-world experience while working on lunar robotics, propulsion, satellite design, unmanned systems, and energy solutions. Half of our Aerospace Center researchers are undergraduates—empowering early career talent and shaping diverse leaders in aerospace.
Center for the Advancement of Space Safety and Mission Assurance Research (CASSMAR)
Serve as an interdisciplinary, cross-functional research center focused on the enhancement of the safety, reliability and mission assurance of spaceflight - from the materials, vehicle and systems perspectives. Establish partnerships with government and commercial spaceflight organizations to identify knowledge gaps, support technical interchange of research advancements and share experiences from lessons-learned. Educate the next generation of competent, diverse, and enthusiastic space scientists and engineers through advanced research and collaboration.
Center for Environmental Resource Management (CERM)
The Center for Environmental Resource Management (CERM) provides university-wide leadership and coordination for energy and environmentally-related academic, policy, research, and service activities. CERM focuses university resources to address energy, hazardous waste, air quality, water availability and quality, ecosystem, and policy issues through an active program of research, outreach, policy and academic programs, including support for a culturally diverse student population to develop the skills necessary to become environmental engineers and scientists. CERM is committed to developing both the human and technical resources needed to build the capacity of the region to solve its environmental problems.
Center for Inland Desalination Systems (CIDS)
CIDS builds on a strong foundation of related research already being done by faculty members in geological sciences, chemistry and civil engineering. CIDS funding is currently a combination of a $2 million grant from the state of Texas through its Emerging Technology Fund, $2 million from The University of Texas System, and matching funds raised by UTEP (goal is $2 million in sponsored research from industry partners).
Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CTIS)
It is with pleasure to announce the formation of the Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CTIS) at UTEP. The focus of CTIS, which supplants the Center for Highway Materials Research, is to coordinate basic and applied research related to the nation's transportation infrastructure at UTEP. One of the missions of this new Center is to directly support the new PhD in Civil Engineering with focus in Infrastructure Systems.
Research Institute for Manufacturing and Engineering Systems (RIMES)
RIMES was created in 1995 as the Institute for Manufacturing and Materials Management. We have recently renamed the Institute and it has taken the lead in focusing on the research and applications of Systems Engineering.
W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation
The W. M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation, a unique multidisciplinary research facility that occupies more than 36,820 square feet at UTEP, houses more than $8 million in research infrastructure, including over 100 advanced manufacturing systems. The center focuses on additive manufacturing technology development, engineered and structured materials, and advanced AM applications, with combined facilities for advanced manufacturing, metrology and reverse engineering, and materials characterization and testing.
Center of Excellence for Sharing resources for the Advancement of Research and Education through Cyberinfrastructure (Cyber-ShARE)
The Center concentrates specifically on the aspects of CI that deal with software and middleware services and tools, with the focus on the development of scientific CI applications and on training the next generation of scientists who can effectively use CI to perform leading-edge science.
The Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce
The Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce sponsors, conducts and promotes three main avenues of research: research in innovation and commerce, research for commercialization of innovation, and research in entrepreneurship education. The Center was founded in 2012 through generous contributions from UTEP alumnus Mike Loya. The Center connects the College of Business Administration and the College of Engineering. The Center is part of a UTEP and El Paso ecosystem to support innovation and commerce.
Micro and Nanofabrication Facility
The Nanofabrication Facility is equipped with 6,000 square feet of class-100 clean room space which is used for enabling research in micro- and nanotechnology. It comprises of more than 25 pieces of major research instrumentation for the deposition of thin films, lithographic fabrication and the characterization of materials and devices for areas such as photovoltaics, memristors and silicon microelectronic processing.
