51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ

Southern Nevada is an emerging epicenter for the cannabis industry with roughly $1 billion in legal annual sales. 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Cannabis Policy Institute addresses the research and scholarship to better understand the complex issues surrounding legalization as well as the disparate impacts of past practices and the importance of social equity and justice going forward.

The College of Liberal Arts received a three-year, $800,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to form the Neon Pacific Initiative (NPI). The NPI aims to expand, enhance, and elevate the placemaking and public-facing scholarship activities happening in 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Asian and Asian American Studies Program. In collaboration with 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ's Asian & Asian American Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts, the NPI created the Neon Pacific Summer Symposium Series, a roundtable for leading scholars, graduate students, undergraduates, and community members.

Researchers in the College of Sciences received a $621,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to purchase and install a new dilution refrigerator. The refrigerator, which can experiment with materials and devices such as quantum particles and millimeter-sized superconductors, is expected to lead to advancements in quantum computing, medicine, logistics, manufacturing, finance and more. 

The Clinical Simulation Center received a grant to continue delivering the highest quality education for healthcare students and professionals. The grant will fund healthcare simulation equipment and to provide additional resources to improve quality of education, patient outcomes, and patient safety.

Founded by School of Architecture student Osarodion ‘Victory’ Igbinobaro during the 2022 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ President's Innovation Challenge, AERO AI has transformed into a growing local tech startup company partnering with 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ, Nevada Partners, Drone Grantology, and other regional businesses. Their flagship platform, SiEGA, delivers immersive 3D visualizations and AI-driven analytics for improved decision-making in construction, architecture, real estate, urban planning, and engineering. 

The Small Business Development Center (SBDC), located in the Black Fire Innovation center, opened a second office in North Las Vegas City Hall to extend the university's reach to a new community of small business owners and strengthen 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ's partnership with city officials. The new SBDC office will offer no-cost training and assistance to small businesses with financial, marketing, production, organization, engineering and technical problems and feasibility studies.

A gift from MGM Resorts International will help 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ address the need for children to receive diagnoses and therapies for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The funding will aid the College of Education to develop new programs to boost the number of Board Certified Behavior Analysts who are qualified to help children with ASD and their families. Partnering with the Grant a Gift Autism Foundation - Ackerman Center, the 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ/CSUN Preschool, 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s CREW Disability Center, and telehealth services, these new programs will provide future practitioners with a broader base of experiences in a variety of community settings.

The 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ National Supercomputing Institute (NSI) received a $4 million federal appropriation to enhance computational capacity and better support of 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s research community. ​​NSI provides supercomputing training and services to academic and research institutions, the government, and private industry for research and development related to energy, the environment, medical informatics, and health care delivery.