The Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU) has announced the inaugural cohort of awardees for the ASCENDᴿ Research and Leadership Program, a competitive, faculty‑led initiative supporting defense‑aligned research across HSRU member institutions.

ASCENDᴿ, which stands for Advancing STEM Careers through Education, Networking, and Development plus Research, is a partnership between HSRU and the U.S. Department of War (DoW). The ASCENDᴿ Research Program is designed to advance research aligned with DoW science and technology priorities while strengthening collaboration across Alliance institutions and engaging graduate students in applied research experiences.

As the first cohort of the ASCENDᴿ Research and Leadership Program, these awardees reflect the breadth of expertise across the HSRU Alliance and represent an important milestone in the launch of the ASCENDᴿ initiative. Selected projects span multiple research areas informed by the U.S. National Defense Science and Technology Strategy, including human‑machine interfaces, advanced materials, and space technology. Faculty‑led teams will collaborate across institutions to address real‑world defense challenges.

Awardees in the ASCENDᴿ Research Program will receive funding of up to $200,000 to support one‑year research projects. Each project is required to integrate at least one Graduate Research Assistant, reinforcing hands‑on research training aligned with national defense and STEM workforce priorities. Principal Investigators and Co‑Principal Investigators will also participate in the ASCENDᴿ Leadership Program, reflecting the program’s integrated research and leadership development model.

The ASCENDᴿ Leadership Program is designed to introduce HSRU faculty to national security challenges and the defense enterprise through military operational engagements, interactions with senior defense leaders, innovation roundtables, and other immersive experiences. Through the program, faculty participants will deepen their understanding of defense‑related research priorities, strengthen mentorship capacity for graduate students, and build long‑term pathways for engagement with the defense research ecosystem.

The inaugural ASCENDᴿ cohort includes awardees representing institutions across the HSRU Alliance. Participants will begin with a program orientation this spring, officially launch the program in August 2026, and conclude the experience with a culminating event at the end of the project year.

Through the ASCENDᴿ Research and Leadership Program, HSRU continues to support coordinated research activity across its membership, fostering collaboration, strengthening research capacity, and expanding pathways toward future DoW research funding and partnerships.

Congratulations to all selected projects. A listing of awardees and funded research projects appears below.


Maxx Arguilla
Nature-Inspired Design of All-Inorganic Crystals with Intrinsic Chirality, Optoelectronic Activity, and Strong Sensitivity to Circularly Polarized Light
University of California, Irvine

Jonathan Calvert
Amplifying Operational Resilience Through Human and Intelligent-Machine Co-Learning
University of California, Davis

Alejandra Castellanos
From Atoms to Architecture: Physics-Based Design of Functionally Graded High-Entropy Ultra-High-Temperature Ceramics for Extreme Environments
‍The University of Texas at El Paso

Christopher DelRe
Using Nanopores to Efficiently Isolate Polymers With Ultra-Low Polydispersity Toward Advanced Lightweight Materials
City University of New York Graduate Center

Ross Greer
Naturalistic Multimodal Human Instruction for Resilient Human–Machine Teaming in Autonomous Defense Systems
University of California, Merced

Azadeh Haghighi, Mohammad Ghashami
TRACE: Topology-Responsive Conformal Electronics for Lightweight, Thermally Resilient Defense Systems University of Illinois, Chicago

Guru Khalsa
First-Principles Constraints on Early-State Plasma-Free ScN Epitaxy
University of North Texas

Leonel Lagos
Enhancing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Through AI and AR-Enabled Human-Robot Teaming
Florida International University

Daniel Oropeza, Yangying Zhu
Next Generation Thermal Protection Systems: Developing Advanced Metal-Polymer Composites for Reusable Spacecraft
University of California, Santa Barbara

Daniel Pineda, Christopher Combs
Transpiration Cooling for Hypersonic Thermal Management With Next-Generation Additively Manufactured Materials
The University of Texas at San Antonio

Nicholas Rolston
Open-Air Plasma Manufacturing of Advanced Energy Materials for Solid State Lithium Batteries
Arizona State University

Sergey Stavisky
‍Ultrafast High Bandwidth Human-Machine Interfacing via Intracortical Semantic Decoding
University of California, Davis

Justin Urso
Characterization of Advanced Space Propellants for Space Missile Defense
University of Central Florida

Steven Weisberg, Hunter Ball
Costs and Benefits of Using GPS-Supported Navigation for Mission-Relevant Spatial Learning
The University of Texas at Arlington

Wenwu Xu
Thermal-Elastic Processing (TEP) for Defense-Relevant Localized Interface Engineering via Coupled Atomistic Modeling and in Situ Electron Microscopy
San Diego State University