VSGC ESMD INTERNSHIPS ARCHIVE OF RECIPIENTS

NASA's Exploration Systems Missions Directorate (ESMD) PROGRAMS_ARCHIVE OF AWARDEES BY YEAR

The Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC), based in UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS), has received funding from the Higher Education Office of NASA's Exploration Systems Missions Directorate (ESMD) to enhance three targeted components of Vermont's engineering education programs. Click to see ESMD Programs

010-2011 URECA Student Researchers

Meghan Thompson
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Civil Engineering, UVM
Title of Project: "Flume Experiment of Effects of Variable Shapes of Engineered Log Jams on River Morphology and Erosion"

Christopher Tardie
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Electrical Engineering, UVM
Title of Project: "Determining Water Content in Snow-packs through Gamma Radiation Measurements"

2010-2011 URECA Student Researchers:
NASA-Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) is supporting 3 2009
Undergraduate Research Endeavors Competitive Awards (URECA! Program)
student researchers. Each will be receive $3000 from VSGC and $1000 from UVM.

Trevor Avant
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Mechanical Engineering, UVM
Title of Project: "Atomistic Simulation Study of Indentation of Nickel Nanowires'

Ashley Mckhann
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Mathematics, UVM
Title of Project: "Forecasting Regine Changes in a Physical Toy Climate"

2009 - 2010 URECA! Student Researchers:
NASA-Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) is supporting (3) 2009
Undergraduate Research Endeavors Competitive Awards (URECA! Program)
student researchers. Each will be receive $3000 from VSGC and $1000 from UVM.

Kelly Todd
Faculty Mentor: Guiseppe Petrucci
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Title of Project: "Reactivity of Organic Peroxides and their contribution to Secondary Organic Aerosols"

Evan Malina
Mechanical Engineering (Junior)
Faculty Mentor: Fred Sansoz
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Title of Project: Determination of Mechanical Properties by Indentation of Nanoscale Metallic Wires using Atomic Force Microscopy

http://www.uvm.edu/~cems/?Page=news&storyID=10371&category=cems#.Tjll7SqhBrI.email

Update: 2011: Evan has been hired by Boeing Company, Everett, WA as an Structural Engineer on wide body aircraft.

Simone Willett
Computer Science (Senior)
Faculty Mentor: Chris Skalka
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Title of Project: Program Specialization for Wireless Sensor Networks

URSP: Undergraduate Student Research Program

CAMERON MERCER
Geosciences and Physics, Middlebury Collage
Resident of Mondrose, Colorado
Cameron attended NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, June-Aug 2009 that involves support operations and data analysis for the Mars Exploration Rovers Project, including geologic analysis of rocks, Martian atmospheric monitoring , and tactical planning within the Science Operations Working Group.

NSIP: NASA Student Internship Program
BENJAMIN SCARALIA
RPI, Vermont Resident

Mentored Research
NASA Student Aerospace Workforce Development Research Internship Program (SAWDRIP) Award

BENJAMIN SCARALIA (2009-2010)

Ben was awarded the John Mather Nobel Scholarship Award*
RPI, Vermont Resident
attended NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
June-Aug 2009 with Dr. Igor Eberstein and the NSAS Advanced Supercomputer Division, Greenbelt, MD on the Photo Dissociation of Hydrogen and Deuterium.

*Presented by the John and Jane Mather Foundation, which in turn was funded from the award of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics to Dr. John Mather for his work on the "Big Bang" theory and presented by the Henry Foundation, Inc. Ben is only one of 17 international students to have won the award and the first student in the state of Vermont.

PRESS RELEASE
RUTLAND COLLEGE STUDENT EARNS NASA NOBEL SCHOLAR AWARD

BENJAMIN SCARALIA
RPI, Vermont Resident
attended NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
June-Aug 2009 with Dr. Igor Eberstein and the NSAS Advanced Supercomputer Division, Greenbelt, MD on the Photo Dissociation of Hydrogen and Deuterium.

2008-2009 ESMD Internship awards for VSGC

Macro and Mini Schlieren Imaging

A UVM SEED Project

Team Members
Ben Greenfield, Coordinator
Mike Murray, Nate Pickrell, Nevin Rallis
Darren Hitt, Faculty Advisor

2008 ESMD Internship awards for VSGC
Jenny Erwin
Middlebury College
Mentor: Nasser Barghouty
"Bridging The Gap Between Known And Unknown Cosmic Ray Detector Caliberation"
NASA Center: Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, AL
June 2 - August 8, 2008

Shanta Keller
University of Vermont
Mentor: Allen Wilkinson

"Vacumn Testing JSC-1a Lunar Stimulant Analytical Model For Calculating Forces for Excavating the Lunar Surface"
NASA Center: Glenn Research Center
Cleveland, OH
May 27 - August 1, 2008

Chris Swanson
St. MIchael's College

"High Temperature Gas Sensors For Combustion Emission Monitoring Applications of Chemical Sensors"
NASA Center: Glenn Research Center
Cleveland, OH
May 27 - August 1, 2008

High Temperature Gas Sensors for Combustion Emission Monitoring_Poster

High Temperature Gas Sensors for Combustion Emission Monitoring_PowerPoint"

2008 SAWDRIP RPI Award
Benjamin Scaraha
RPI, Vermont Resident
NASA Center:Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD
June 2 - August 8, 2008

2008 USRP Award
Benjamin DiMiero
Norwich University

NASA Center: Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, AL
June 2 - August 8, 2008
Abstract Form_Cryoflex .doc
Cryoflex Poster
VCSI Poster
NSIP Internship ppt

Student Design Project and Student Team Competitions
2008
UVM'S Team NASA
Click here for senior project
"Developing Model "Nano-Sat"
http://mkrzyszt.googlepages.com/home
Faculty Research Advisor: Darren Hitt

On Monday, April 21, 2008. Team members: Mark, Mike and Ken and Laurel Zeno participated in NASA's
award ceremony via NASA video teleconference. The ceremony was held at
2:00PM EST, broadcast arranged by Susan Sawyer, NASA Kennedy SFC. We
were set up in 408 LaFayette Hall, UVM. The UVM Team were one of 7
teams across the country to participate in NASA's Systems Engineering
Design Paper Competition. All the teams and 4 NASA Centers
participated, linked with video and audio. The all received extremely
high ratings from the NASA engineers who reviewed the papers.
Unfortunately, UVM did not get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. But, the NASA Systems
Engineering Director who spoke asked that they all participate next
year. He encouraged them to do internships and said that he hoped to see
them working with NASA or it's contractors. All reviewers agreed the
papers showed excellent knowledge and well analyzed plans. They also
were impressed with the structure of the presentation of the paper. I
presented each team member with NASA certificates sent from KSC. They
will be presenting their project at Senior Design Night, April 30, 2008
at Sheraton.

VT INTERNSHIPS ARCHIVE OF RECIPIENTS

The 2007 ESMD Intern Recipients are:

(SIP) Summer Internship Program
Shelly Tkach at Goddard NASA Academy Goddard
Summer: 6/4/07-8/10/07
working with Dr. Antonio Mannino
* A Vermonter attending North Carolina State University in Raleigh
Focus: Ocean Sciences
"Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Lab"

Greggory Carpenter at NASA Ames Research Center
Summer : 10 week program
working with Terry Fong
Focus: Intelligent Robotics
"Human Interface Device(HID) Joystick Control for the K-10 Rover"

Justin McCabe at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Summer 6/4/07-8/10/07
working with Susan Breon
Focus:
"Cryopropulsion, Structures & Loads for the Constellation Program, & Reconfigurable Small Spacecraft"
* Justin is the only intern offered additional funding from the research contractor.

HEAT EXCHANGER DESIGN FOR SMALL TO LARGE SCALE LOX-LH2 CRYOGENIC PROPELLANT STORAGE TANKS

Christopher Swanson from St. Michaels College
has received a research internship from ESMD at Ames Research Center
working with Terry Fong
Focus:
Arm Lab, Intelligent Robotics Group. Lunartics
Construction of an Avionics Box for a Non-Prehensile Robot

(NSIP) NASA Student Research Award
2007-2008
Katelyn Billings, SMC "Solvatochromism and Photo-Induced Intramolecular Electron Transfer" ppt

"Solvatochromism and Photo-Induced Intramolecular Electron Transfer" poster

2005 Student Internship

Congratulations to Erin Burke who was selected to attend
an internship program at NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia

2004-2005 URECA AWARD RECIPIENTS
PHIL BOURN - is attending the University of Vermont as a fourth year student. His project centers on Mobile Robotic Survelliance and Sensing so as to enable sensing in areas that are too dangerous or awkward to place humans. The practical uses of these robotic systems are not just military based. By scanning walls, ceilings and floor robots can help determine the structural integrity and possibly locate trapped victims; robots could be deployed in burning structures to search for people in cases where it is too dangerous to send in firefighters; ductwork, crawl spaces, and caves can be inspected and searched easily with small robotic systems. Phil's goal is to analyze the parameters of a small selection of mobile robotic surveillance systems: mobility issues such as controllability, load capacity, range efficiency, stability, and measurability of three types of ground mobile vehicles. These three types are: wheeled vehicles, tracked vehicles and walking/crawling vehicles. Phil is majoring in mechanical engineering and has been involved in several projects including composite drive shaft analysis.

BENJI CAPSUTO - Graduated from UVM in electrical engineering in May 2004. His project centers on Wireless Sensor Network Protocols. Many areas of study require collection of field data and often it is not practical to have individuals at each location requiring monitoring. For example, temperature, light and humidity readings in a corn field would require a researcher to walk around the corn field with instrumentation to gather the data. Not only would the data be inconvenient to collect but also be temporally sparse. Using wireless sensor network (WSN), however, could quickly and inexpensively send the data using a radio transmitter. Furthermore the network could be designed to collect data on a continuous basis and send the results to the researcher via the internet. The University of California at Berkeley (UCB) has developed small wireless sensors called Motes. They are capable of collecting data across distances of hundreds of meters, and are able to "hop" the data between each wireless sensor back
to a base station. Benji's research has explored various routing protocols for WSN, using the Motes as a test platform. Most proposed protocols have only been tested in simulation. Benji's research will implement the protocols in hardware. Benji has designed and built several websites including the site for the Mini-Baja team.

2003-2004
DAVID KORDA-
is attending the University of Vermont as a third year student. His project centers on the Effects of Damaging Compression on Mechanical, Chemical and Structural Properties of Intervertebral Disc Tissue. A most common cause of disability, low back pain affects up to 70% of all human beings at some point in their lives, resulting in an estimated yearly cost of 50 billion dollars in the U.S. (Not including earning and productivity losses) . The integrity of the intervertebral disc affects spinal function. Mechanical loading of the Intervertebral disc may be directly responsible for alterations in the structure and intervertebral disc properties or may stimulate biological remodeling of the matrix. David's study seeks to investigate and provide a quantitative relationship between mechanical loading and the resulting structural and biochemical changes. David has won several scholarships and was awarded the Tau Beta Phi Freshman award.