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Escobar blames UTEP’s Wilson for loss of ‘once-in-a-generation’ NSF grant [1]

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Date: 2025-08-15

El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar blamed University of Texas at El Paso President Heather Wilson for the cancellation this week of the National Science Foundation grant that was awarded to a UTEP-led coalition in January 2024.

The NSF on Tuesday officially canceled a grant for the Paso del Norte Defense and Aerospace Innovation Engine that would have brought $15 million initially and up to $160 million over 10 years. The NSF suspended the grant in April 2024 to review the proposal, but did not detail its reasons.

The grant was derailed by UTEP leadership, Escobar said in a statement Friday. She wrote that Wilson accused Ahsan Choudhuri, the grant’s principal investigator, of including “incorrect statements” in the proposal. Wilson relieved him of his title of associate vice president of the Aerospace Center and as the project’s principal investigator.

“The loss of this funding is about more than just the loss of money; this grant represented El Paso’s ‘moon shot’ that could have greatly advanced our local economy, increased wages, reversed our ‘brain drain,’ and put El Paso on track to very quickly be a part of the national defense manufacturing community,” Escobar wrote.

“El Pasoans deserved to reap the benefits from this extraordinary collaboration and historic support from the federal government. As this opportunity officially evaporates, it’s important that the community understand what was lost, who lost it, and why,” the statement said.

UTEP did not respond to a request for comment about Escobar’s statement. University officials – who last year pledged they were “fully committed to working with our partners and the NSF to get the El Paso Innovation Engine grant back on track as soon as possible” — said earlier this week that they had nothing more to offer in regard to the canceled grant.

Among the grant’s goals were to build the region’s manufacturing base to attract more businesses tied to defense, aerospace and additive manufacturing. The collaborative involved 18 partners from eight counties in West Texas and Southern New Mexico.

Choudhuri said he had no comment on Escobar’s statement. He announced in July his decision to go on leave later this month and retire in December. The professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering had secured tens of millions of research dollars for UTEP since 2014.

Bob Blumenfeld, Choudhuri’s attorney, has often said that the award proposal had no meaningful “incorrect statements” and that the grant, which was reviewed by UTEP before it was submitted to the NSF, should not have been suspended.

In an interview with El Paso Matters on Thursday, Mayor Renard Johnson acknowledged that the grant cancellation was a blow to El Paso’s efforts to expand aerospace manufacturing.

“I think we had a setback there where we lost that funding,” he said. But Johnson said El Paso still has opportunities in the aerospace sector, with UTEP playing a key role, especially with the university’s newly opened Advanced Manufacturing and Aerospace Center.

El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson, center joined university, city, county and Mexican dignitaries to cut the ribbon for the University of Texas at El Paso’s new Advanced Manufacturing and Aerospace Center, April 11, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

“I think once we get that fully up and running, companies like Lockheed Martin … they’re already taking notice of the facilities we have here. I think they’re going to start looking to relocate more of their aerospace assets here in El Paso. I think it’s a function of time. We’re set back a little bit, but I think once these come online and people start realizing the assets we have here in El Paso, it’s going to be even better.”

The city and county of El Paso were among the project’s partners. The group also included Spaceport America, Workforce Solutions Borderplex, El Paso Community College, the Rio Grande Council of Governments, and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining.

The grant’s objectives included support for government, industry, nonprofits and academia in research and development of concepts, procedures and technologies to lift the region’s commercial prospects.

The decision by UTEP to relieve Choudhuri of his Aerospace Center position set off a ripple effect that included the retirement of his frequent co-principal investigator Ryan Wicker, the resignation Jack Chessa as chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and general mistrust within the department of college and university leaders.

Wicker, founder and former director of UTEP’s W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation and a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, was the co-principal investigator on the canceled NSF grant. He and Choudhuri had sent several emails to UTEP officials in early 2024 about their concerns with university administration and the handling of this grant.

Choudhuri and Wicker accounted for almost $36 million, or 12%, of the university’s research expenditures during the past four fiscal years, according to UTEP data.

The NSF grants award web page showed that the UTEP award ended Aug. 12. It was scheduled to end in February 2026. The initial amount of $15 million was deferred after the April 2024 suspension, and none of it was ever spent. The agency also removed the UTEP project from its Regional Innovation Engine web page sometime in the past few months.

NSF spokesman Mike England said this week that the funding was reallocated after the award’s initial suspension.

“As a result, sufficient funds are no longer available to support the project as originally envisioned, and NSF has cancelled the award,” England said in an email.

Choudhuri’s future includes ARC Aerospace, which he incorporated in July 2024, according to state records. The company’s website describes the El Paso-based company as a revolutionary defense and aerospace technology firm that will support the development and deployment of defense systems.

El Paso Matters founder and CEO Robert Moore contributed to this report.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2025/08/15/utep-nsf-grant-terminated-veronica-escobar-blames-heather-wilson/

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