ORAU has a proud history of working with and supporting the first responders who play a critical role in the health and safety of citizens in every community across the United States. To improve our nation’s readiness, our emergency preparedness and response experts are helping our customers prepare for, respond to, and recover from pandemics, natural disasters, terrorism, and other unforeseen events.
ORAU is now accepting applications for its annual Education Grants program for 2026, offering grant funding for teachers in Anderson, Campbell, Morgan, Roane and Scott counties. Selected projects will be implemented during the 2026-2027 school year. Educators interested in applying for ORAU funding can complete and submit an online proposal. All proposals are due Friday, April 24, 2026.
Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high-energy optics group on advances X-ray optics for future space telescopes. His research focuses on designing and fabricating multilayer mirror coating that can efficiently reflect hard X-rays. In this interview, he tells guest host Amber Davis that X-ray optical coatings are useful for focusing X-rays so that astrophysicists can make some sense out of it and can understand the underlying physics happening at high temperatures in the universe. For scientists who might want to pursue a NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship, Kirtan recommends cultivating a deep curiosity about a problem that genuinely matters to you.
For more than 80 years, ORAU has served as a trusted partner to our government customers, our university consortium members, and our local community. In this video, you can meet some of the people behind the ORAU name.
