Space Grant Success Stories

Faculty mentor, Eddie Ong, says that the AZSGC high-altitude ballooning program gives students hands-on experience that "is typically not introduced until a student’s senior year of college or graduate school, so its availability for community college students builds a pipeline of competent transfer students who continue their education at university, often as a cohort to support each other."

Stephany Maldonado's poster was titled "Testing Different Hydroxyapatite Particles in Cell Culture ." Stephany is a UArizona student majoring in Biomedical Sciences. She works with Dr. John Szivek from the Orthopaedic Surgery Department.

Mary Lara heads the "AIMER" Program designed to teach students in Northern Arizona about the excitement and science of our solar system.

On Saturday, April 1st, teams from across the state of Arizona launched their 3lb payloads on two high-altitude weather balloons as part of the Arizona Space Grant’s ASCEND program. Photo credit: Iván González López, Phoenix College ASCEND team lead.

Michael Klooster, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Prescott (ERAU) graduate, was sponsored by ERAU Space Grant for a 2021 internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Michael is now a contractor with KBR and works at NASA Johnson Space Center with the Artemis Crew Health Team as a Crew Health Integrator for Orion!

One of the club’s newest members said she’s learned a lot since joining. “I really like the hands-on opportunity and the ability to expand my knowledge,” said Winona Roulston, Mechanical Engineering. “You get to practice things like coding and soldering, and you learn concepts that you are going to be applying in your day-to-day career.”

and we are proud to see Brooke Carruthers (AY20-22 UArizona Space Grant Intern) recognized with the James B. Willett Education Memorial Scholarship.

The ASCEND program's Fall 2022 launch was on November 19th. For this program, students are tasked to design, build, and then launch payloads each semester on high-altitude weather balloons. This year, we launched two balloons. Balloon #1 reached 100,420 ft and Balloon #2 reached 102,272 ft.

He is one of 25 individuals selected for the five-year fellowship. Recipients are nominated based on proven talent and extraordinary originality and dedication to their creative pursuits.