Undergraduate Interns 2022

I am a second year Ph.D student at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences. My research involves using channeled polarimetry in the thermal IR to investigate characteristics of cirrus ice clouds. These clouds affect the Earth's radiation budget and are a major source of uncertainty in current climate models. Since light becomes polarized after interacting with particles in the atmosphere, polarization measurements contain information about the micro-physical properties of these clouds. The instrument I use for this project is called the infrared channeled spectro-polarimeter (IRCSP). As part of my dissertation, I will be deploying the IRCSP on NASA science flights while I ride alongside students participating in NASA’s Student Airborne Science Activation Program (SaSa) (https://www.nasa.gov/sasa). I saw this as an exciting opportunity to combine my research with my passion for educational outreach. My space grant project will begin with making a week-long optical sciences class for 4th-7th graders for an educational program called Nerding (https://nerding.org). I will be working with certified teachers to help make the content exciting and accessible to elementary students who are interested in science. This class will be permanently added to Nerding’s summer program and taught for many years to come. Then, this curriculum will be adapted to emphasize the fundamental operating principles of the IRCSP with small, hands-on, educational materials, and presented to SaSa students aboard a NASA aircraft while the instrument is taking data of the clouds right below our feet. 

I'm Mitchell- a fifth year PhD candidate in the Department of Systems & Industrial Engineering. Under the advisorship of Dr. Ricardo Valerdi, I research Model Based Systems Engineering applications for cyberphysical space systems, focusing on cybersecurity and software integration for digital mission planning. I am also a member of Dr. Eric Pearce's research group at Steward Observatory where I conduct photometry experiments for measuring night sky brightness and other astronomical phenomena. Prior to the University of Arizona, I worked at submarine manufacturer General Dynamics Electric Boat. Before that, I attended Northwestern University for my BS in their Integrated Science Program, Integrated Engineering, and Earth & Planetary Science; I also obtained my MS in Chemical & Biological Engineering.

As part of the NASA Space Grant, I am looking forward to communicating complex areas of space science to the public. Through my podcast 'Space Posthaste', I'll be able to teach listeners of all ages about hot topics ranging from the new James Webb Space Telescope to Martian volcanic caves, and more! I'm hoping to start conversations between listeners and their friends and families to discuss fascinating space topics usually inaccessible to those without advanced degrees. Thanks to widely available streaming services, Space Posthaste has the potential to reach countless space enthusiasts!

I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. I use a combination of remote sensing and plant functional traits to study potential benefits of co-locating photovoltaic installations and agriculture on the same piece of land (agrivoltaic systems) in dryland environments. My work answers the urgent call to overhaul current land-use practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I have developed a low-cost near-ground remote sensing system to measure productivity, phenology, and status of crops grown in our agrivoltaic experimental field sites and production farms. I am deploying these monitoring systems at partner field sites across the world to measure crop performance accurately and consistently over a diversity of environments and agrivoltaic system designs. Now, I want to give K-12 students in southern Arizona the opportunity to engage with and learn STEM concepts through relevant real-world science.

My University of Arizona NASA Space Grant Fellowship project will bring the same near-ground remote sensing system I’m using in my research into the hands of K-12 students in the form of an accessible kit that they will install in their own agrivoltaic gardens. Students will also have the chance to run their own experiments using micro agrivoltaic system kits. These project-based learning opportunities will be complemented with a two-part curriculum focused on remote sensing and agrivoltaic systems. The curriculum will be designed with the help of partners at the University of Arizona Community and School Garden Program and direct engagement with teachers at the participating schools. Teacher training workshops will also be held to ensure that a wider audience of educators is exposed to these cutting-edge STEM concepts. Looking forward, I will make the curricula, project demonstrations, and additional resources available and accessible in an interactive website tailored to both students and teachers.

I am a first-year master’s student in the department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Science, working with Dr. Xiquan Dong on research in the field of Meteorology. For my University of Arizona (UA)/NASA Space Grant Fellowship, I will be working with Dr. Constantino Manoli at St. Cyril of Alexandria School and the Department on bringing an underrepresented science, Meteorology, into the eighth-grade classroom. I will join Dr. Manoli in his classroom to help teach a unit about the Arizona monsoon season and the regional climate change over the Arizona sun corridor. The students will then be brought to the UA campus for a field trip where they will be able to interact with different instruments and models that aid in the forecasting and research of the seasonal monsoons and regional climate change. After this, students will complete a research project to present at El Dia, a poster session put on by the department, to gain valuable experience in research and interacting with higher education professors and students. By the end of the fellowship, I will also have created a curriculum with the goal of being able to pass this on to other schools and bridge the gap between what students are learning in higher level education and the K-12 system.

I received my bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University where I majored in Meteorology and minored in Geospatial Information Systems and Technology. Through high school, I was a mentor for students at the local elementary school and I’ve used my lifelong love of gymnastics to be a coach for kids of all ages, even throughout my time at Texas A&M. I am excited to combine my passion for meteorology and love of kids into an outreach program that can provide students with new experiences in STEM.

I am a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Physics, studying under professor Elisabeth Krause. My research is in cosmological parameter inference using photometric redshift galaxies surveys, focusing on improved theoretical modeling and extensions to the standard model of cosmology in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC). Cosmology is a rapidly growing field with the next generation of experiments having the precision to answer some of the universe’s deepest mysteries, yet it still remains a field often overlooked in high school studies. In this exciting time, my fellowship focuses on making cosmology more accessible to younger students in order to prepare and inspire future scientists. Furthermore, knowing how to code is becoming increasingly important in a variety of fields, and cosmology is no exception. My goal is to make guided notebooks for students which will teach them how to understand Python while simultaneously learning about the universe. I will be collaborating with educators and students in the local Tucson area to workshop my project and expand upon Arizona science standards. We will discuss the standard model of cosmology, the different observation methods used, and the big open questions cosmologists hope to answer in the coming years, all while utilizing engaging applications of math, physics, and computer science. My final goal is to launch my project online to enable students, regardless of their high school curriculum or their geographic location, to learn about the wonders of our universe.

I’m a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Environmental Science department at the University of Arizona. My dissertation research focuses on late Quaternary soil-landscape evolution in the Sonoran Desert with an emphasis on better understanding how desert landscape dynamics and paleoclimate influenced land-use decisions and subsistence strategies employed by pre-European contact indigenous peoples.  My NASA Space Grant project involves teaching students at Tucson High Magnet School about the importance of soils and soil processes in the global carbon cycle. This project will use in-classroom lab experimentation coupled with the field study of soils at the university agricultural experiment station. The soil experiments will use easy-to-find, low-cost materials and the experimental methods will be designed, at least in part, by the students themselves. The students will also have the option to collect and analyze their own soils. The overarching goal of the project is to get students thinking about the complex natural world that exists under their feet and to inspire an appreciation for what the average person simply refers to as “dirt”.