A nearly two-year investigation found no wrongdoing in a grant application that led to a potential $160 million award for a UTEP-led collaboration to expand aerospace manufacturing in the El Paso region.
The finding by the National Science Foundation Office of the Inspector General comes too late to save the grant, which was suspended when the investigation began in April 2024, and killed last year after the money was reallocated for other programs.
“We did not substantiate the allegations,” said a Feb. 4 letter from NSF OIG Special Agent Martha Cusack to Ahsan Choudhuri, the now-retired professor who was the principal investigator and driving force behind the grant.
Choudhuri said the vindication did not surprise him because he knew he had done nothing wrong.
“I’m very, very happy,” he said when contacted about the results of the NSF review.
In a statement to El Paso Matters, UTEP President Heather Wilson said she continues to believe the grant application was flawed.
“I stand by our May 2024 finding that a former UTEP faculty member said we have a test range, buildings, and equipment to make available for an NSF research project that the university did not have. The faculty member’s statements were not true. It’s not clear which investigation the NSF is referring to in its letter, but we remain confident in our personnel decision and our decision to disclose the truth to the NSF,” Wilson said.
While happy with the news of the inspector general finding, Choudhuri said he mourned the loss of the NSF grant and the deterioration of the associated projects that were part of a transformational economic development plan for the region, and the loss of “his baby,” the University of Texas at El Paso’s Aerospace Center, which he founded.
He blamed Wilson for this situation, calling her “a nasty, corrupt politician.”
Wilson is a former congresswoman from New Mexico and was secretary of the Air Force during the first Donald Trump administration. She also is a member of the National Science Board, which oversees the NSF.
“In my mind this was disruption by corruption,” Choudhuri said during a phone interview with El Paso Matters. He later added, “I demand an apology because the allegations were false and were designed to destroy everything I had built.”
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, called for Wilson to face “accountability” following the inspector general findings.
“I’m relieved that Dr. Choudhuri’s name has been cleared of all wrongdoing. His reputation suffered because of the baseless accusation made by Dr. Heather Wilson, UTEP lost a brilliant and devoted faculty member, and El Paso lost $160 million that was a huge milestone in our economic development efforts around creating high paying jobs and opportunity,” Escobar said.
“Under any other circumstance, there would be accountability for the individual who caused all of this. My question is, will there be any accountability?” she said.
Wilson’s bosses issued full-throated support for her Friday in a statement to El Paso Matters from the University of Texas System.
“We unequivocally support President Wilson and the decisions she makes. She leads with the highest degree of integrity, ethics, accountability, and compassion,” Chancellor John Zerwas and Board of Regents Chairman Kevin Eltife said in the statement. “She has the full confidence and trust of the Board of Regents and chancellor, all of whom were briefed on a longstanding personnel matter she dealt with, and the admirable way she put the future of her university first.
“President Wilson continues to lead UTEP to national prominence in many areas including engineering, advanced manufacturing and defense innovation. UTEP is achieving record levels of enrollment, student success, research expenditures and philanthropy, including the largest gift in its history just this week. We are grateful to have a person of great integrity like President Wilson at the helm of our outstanding students, faculty and researchers. and how she has dealt with this situation.”
Choudhuri said he has moved on and is ready to do bigger and better things for El Paso. He incorporated a company, ARC Aerospace in June 2024, and already is working on government contracts alongside many of his former students who worked at the Aerospace Center.
He said he celebrated the NSF news with his employees.
“I’m committed to my community,” Choudhuri said.
An NSF spokesman did not respond to questions about the investigation process and the availability of documents tied to the review. He said the agency declined comment for this story.
The National Science Foundation awarded an El Paso coalition led by UTEP one of 10 Regional Innovation Engine grants in January 2024. The grant could have earned the region as much as $160 million through 2034 if the partners achieved certain metrics.
The grant was celebrated by El Paso leaders who called it a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape El Paso’s economy. The grant called for building out an aerospace sector that would help small businesses grow and provide jobs for young El Pasoans who now leave the community in search of better economic opportunity.
UTEP began auditing Choudhuri’s grant application in March 2024, and stated that the application misstated resources UTEP could make available for the grant. Choudhuri has repeatedly denied that.
The NSF never said what claims it was investigating, but UTEP’s internal audit came at the same time the NSF suspended the grant.
Wilson stripped Choudhuri of his associate vice president title in May 2024, though he remained a member of the mechanical engineering faculty until retiring in December 2025. The same day Choudhuri was demoted, the university sent a letter to the NSF outlining the findings of its internal review of the grant proposal.
In Wilson’s May 6, 2024, demotion letter to Choudhuri, she stated the university became aware of “questionable commitments” included in the proposal that had been submitted Jan. 18, 2023.
The letter questioned the readiness of “currently available resources,” including a number of hangars at the Fabens (Texas) Airport and the use of 8,000 acres of test facilities for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Wilson wrote that those commitments were inaccurate and that neither of those statements were corrected – claims Choudhuri has denied and which the NSF inspector general apparently did not substantiate.
“As a result of this conduct, the University has lost confidence in your suitability to lead,” Wilson wrote in her letter to Choudhuri.
In her statement to El Paso Matters, Wilson said the grant proposal “wasn’t the only issue that caused the university to remove this former faculty member from his leadership position.” She then went on to mention issues that weren’t included in her letter to Choudhuri removing him from his administrative position.
Wilson said former UTEP President Diana Natalicio “reprimanded him and removed him from his tenure-track position at the university for plagiarism on an NSF proposal in 2006, audit findings of his center in April 2023 found non-compliant procurement card purchases and significant financial issues, and he also was found to have violated the university nepotism policy in 2022.”
Choudhuri said Wilson was pivoting in the face of the NSF inspector general decision.
“Let’s stop lying,” he said. “You got caught by NSF.”
He declined to comment on the plagiarism allegation, other than to say NSF thought enough of his record to award the $160 million aerospace grant in 2024. He he was granted tenure, made a full professor in 2010, given an endowed chair position in 2015 and made an associate vice president in 2018.
Choudhuri said the nepotism and financial mismanagement allegations were made in an audit that he believes was “staged to attack me.”
The 2023 internal audit report looked into practices of the Aerospace Center, which Choudhuri led, and made recommendations for improvement. It did not recommend any disciplinary action. In his annual performance evaluation after the audit, which Choudhuri provided to El Paso Matters, he was rated 3.8 on a 4.0 scale and praised for his leadership and service to UTEP.
“This kind of attack is not going to work. You understand the meanness. And the audit is done by her people,” Choudhuri said.