Previous Wyoming NASA Interns

NASA Internship Application Information

2007

Robert Grogan

Undergraduate Student, Electrical Engineering, UW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA

Justin Hovland

Undergraduate Student, Mechanical Engineering, UW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA

Daniel Milligan

Undergraduate Student, Mechanical Engineering, UW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA

Julie Sandberg

Undergraduate Student, Electrical Engineering, UW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA

2006

Robert Grogan

Undergraduate Student, Electrical Engineering, UW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Advisor: Mohammad Mojaradi
Research topic: Extreme Environment Electronics

My experience at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory this summer has been incredible. The ten-week internship program familiarized me with important engineering skills and techniques, plus it gave me an amazing introduction to the space and aerospace industries, from small, private companies all the way to NASA itself. JPL made sure to provide us as much exposure to space as possible with programs such as weekly seminars, tours to nearby NASA facilities, and access to most of JPL’s mission centers. It has been an honor to work with those responsible for the success of past interplanetary missions, and to know that my work will contribute to future spaceflights. Spending the summer in Southern California with its climate and recreational opportunities has not been too bad, either.

As an electrical engineering undergraduate, I was assigned work in extreme environment electronic testing. Since the behavior of semiconductor electronics is largely dependent upon temperature, we have to make sure that they will work in the extreme heat of Venus and the cold of Mars, Titan, and the moon. Using a liquid nitrogen cryogenic chamber, I tested op-amp chips to temperatures as low as -180 degrees Celsius. Currently I am developing LabView software that will characterize silicon-carbide transistors to temperatures as high as 500 degrees Celsius.  If the cold tests are found to be successful, then the op-amp will be used on the Mars Science Laboratory, a Mini Cooper-sized rover that is expected to depart Earth in 2009. The silicon-carbide transistors will likely be used in future Venus missions.

Douglas Kenik

Undergraduate Student, Mechanical Engineering, UW
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Advisor: Mark Thomson
Research topic: New Deployable Antennae -- I am working with the Advanced Deployable Structures Lab to determine if we can use a much more efficient and inexpensive means of making a new deployable antennae structure utilizing graphite/epoxy composite rods in bending.  We are hoping to accomplish this by bending pultruded graphite tubes after they have been deployed instead of pre-bending them in a manufacturing process.

Julie Sandberg

Undergraduate Student, Electrical Engineering, UW
NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Advisor: Dr. Robert Benson
Research Topic: Investigation of magnetospheric-banded emissions

The NASA Academy is an intense, 10-week long summer internship program that allows college students to gain a better understanding of NASA. The program selects participants who have demonstrated academic excellence, leadership, and an interest in space. I applied online and conducted two phone interviews before being selected.  Three different NASA centers hosted NASA Academies this summer: the Goddard Space Flight Center (where I was) in Maryland, the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and at the Glenn Research Center in Kent, Ohio. I learned a lot about NASA's leaders, as well as its relation to the political, commercial, and private areas of space. Each intern (20 of us) had an individual research project, and we worked together on one big group project. For my individual project I studied the magnetosphere [see the blue region in this cartoon depiction of the Earth], which is the area surrounding earth and extends into space that is affected by earth's magnetic field. For our group project, we designed a mission and spacecraft to send to Saturn's moon, Enceladus. On top of that, we got to visit other NASA centers, businesses, and listen to many great speakers. I highly recommend this program to anyone interested in space!

Project Abstract: Certain emissions can be observed from data collected on the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) on the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) satellite. In the resulting dynamic spectra these emissions are known as banded magnetospheric emissions, or more commonly as "(n + 1/2)f_ce" emissions, because they are located near the halfway point between adjacent harmonics of f_ce. Sounder-simulated emissions are used to measure terrestrial properties such as electron density and magnetic field strength. These emissions exist in the earth’s magnetosphere as well as every other investigated planetary magnetosphere to date. Different emission mechanisms have been proposed, and a better understanding of the emission process will lead to an accurate understanding of plasma characteristics and the emission process. The focus of the investigation of sounder-stimulated plasma resonances in the magnetosphere is 1) to find prime examples and determine the conditions that create these emissions and their duration with respect to orbital and plasma conditions and also 2) to scale in detail some of the features (i.e., how amplitudes and frequencies vary) with an emphasis on the dynamics near the magnetic equator. Critical observations will help determine the mechanism causing banded magnetospheric emissions.

2005

Michelle Hartwell

Undergraduate Student, Physics and Astronomy
NASA Marshall Space Center student intern, Huntsville, AL
Research Topic: Construction of a Swift Data Archive and Development and Implementation of Swift Gamma Ray Burst Analysis Tools
Advisors: Sandy Patel and Chryssa Kouveliotou

Ben Meuer

Undergraduate Student
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Research Topic: Testing the telecommunications interface subsystem of the Multi-Mission System Architecture Platform.  The Multi-Mission System Architecture Platform is a set of basic tools designed to be used in future spacecraft.  The responsibilities of the telecommunications interface include communication between the spacecraft and ground teams as well as acting as the bus controller for the system.
Advisors: Martin Le and Alfred Khashaki

Jessica Todd

Undergraduate Student
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Research Topic: I am working in the Multimission Image Processing Lab (MIPL) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is the lab responsible for the animations and, as the name implies, image processing. There are two main focuses: Cassini images and Mars Exploration Rover (MER) images. Soon the lab will be working more with Deep Impact images. I am currently working with the MER images; creating animations and organizing data.
Advisors: Barbara McGuffie and Dr. Eric De Jong

Ashley Spear

Architectural Engineering
NASA USRP (Undergraduate Student Researcher Program)
NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH
Research Topic: Fire signatures for various spacecraft materials given specific test parameters in a normal gravity environment.

2004

Daniel Kiminki

Graduate Student, Physics and Astronomy
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Research Topic: Dan worked with Dr. Robert Carlson building an instrument for spectrochemical and mineralogical investigation of Mars habitability. Lucina is a Fourier transform interference mid-infrared spectrometer designed to replace the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometers aboard the current Opportunity and Spirit rovers. The mission of these instruments is to determine if life ever existed on Mars through the examination of Martian rocks and soil. The new instrument is expected to be less demanding on resources and more capable in its use of spectrochemical and mineralogical analysis. Lucina is currently being field testing. As an intern, Dan’s task was to design and build a ‘mock up’ of the field instrument and provide input on future construction. This involved calibration of instruments, general design of the ‘mock up’, and programming an automated scanning and reduction process.

2003

Josef Pohl

Graduate Student, Computer Engineering
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Student Intern, Pasadena, CA
Research Topic: Developing a parallel SRTM processing algorithm for the IPG
This work involves developing new methods and modifying pre-existing algorithms to process data collected by the Shuttle RADAR Topography Mission completed in 2003. The main product of this mission was a 30 Meter Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the vast majority of the landmass on Earth. (poles were excluded) Our goal is to take the resultant algorithm, implement a parallel version of it and run it on NASA's Information Power Grid (IPG), a collection of multiprocessor machines spatially distributed at NASA centers throughout the United States.

2002

Brian Dutton

UW Senior, Computer Engineering
NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program Intern
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
Research Topic: Hardware and software development for the Optical Plume Anomaly Detection System
The Optical Plume Anomaly Detection (OPAD) System at NASA processes spectral data from a rocket plume through a neural network, called the Engine Diagnostic Filtering System to determine the metallic contact of the plume in order to detect possible component failure. The system is currently only able to process the data after a rocket has complete testing due to the time latency of the software and the speed of current hardware. In order to speed up this system and make it capable of processing real-time, faster single board computers and a real-time operating system are needed. Research of all single board computers meeting the requirements of the Strategic Launch Initiative, with OPAD is a part of, must be accomplished to determine the most suitable product. The real-time operating system of choice is one based on Linux. In order to determine which distributions of Linux should be used to develop this, research must be accomplished to gain an understanding of Linux, to determine the best distributions for the kernel and the real time Linux kernel interface. Once the real-time Linux implementation is installed, development of an embedded system to be installed on the hardware must be accomplished.

2000

Libby Huskey

UW senior, Mechanical Engineering
NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Research Topic: Vertically Integrated MicroElectroMechanical Systems
Libby spent ten weeks working with NASA scientist Scott Schwinger on the project Vertically Integrated MEMS (VIMS). MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) enable designers to greatly reduce the size, weight, and costs of future spacecraft systems and instruments. Current MEMS research and development efforts have targeted many aspects of aerospace engineering; including guidance, propulsion, environmental sensing, and thermal control. As NASA continues to pursue cost-saving initiatives without sacrificing mission performance, scientific instruments have continued to become smaller and more efficient. MEMS devices for space applications offer significant volume and weight savings over conventional spacecraft design and manufacture.

1999

Heidi Hoffower

UW 1999 graduate, Geology and Geophysics
NASA Academy at Ames Research Center, Moffat Field, CA
Research topic: Human Centered Computing Project
Heidi spent ten weeks at Ames assisting with ongoing research under NASA scientist Jon Guice and participating in a group project. Assisting Guice on the "Human Centered Computing Project" gave Heidi the opportunity to work with an approach to designing information technologies based on the study of how people think, work, and interact with each other. This project is one of many being conducted within the Computational Sciences Division of the Information Sciences and Technology Directorate at Ames.