UMBC hosts “NASA Days” event series with Goddard Space Flight Center
UMBC is collaborating with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to host an interactive, three-day event series that takes a closer look into the center’s current research activity, with insight into how faculty and students can engage with Goddard scientists and engineers.
NASA-UMBC Interaction Days launched on September 9 and continues on September 16 and September 30, highlighting a range of topics on the diverse research and technological advancements in space exploration from leading scientists and engineers at GSFC. The series also provides an overview of the extensive research activity happening in collaboration between UMBC and NASA, a partnership that began nearly 30 years ago.
Astrophysicist Sibasish Laha, an associate research scientist with UMBC’s Center for Space Sciences and Technology who works out of GSFC, organized the series in response to an influx of students inquiring about the work that happens at NASA and ways to get involved.
“I started this interaction day series to help UMBC students better understand what NASA scientists and engineers do on a day-to-day basis,” says Laha. Students get a behind-the-scenes look into the research happening at GSFC, across an array of disciplinary fields such as earth science, data science and AI, astrobiology, and more.
Student opportunities at NASA
Day one of the event series included lectures focused on earth science, exoplanets, and laboratory astrophysics with featured speakers Maurice Leutenegger of GSFC’s x-ray astrophysics laboratory; Wayne Yu, an senior engineer in astrobiology; and planetary scientist Ravi Kopparap. A packed room of more than 90 attendees learned about the inquiring minds behind the GSFC’s research activity.
Day two of the event series (happening on September 16) will feature discussions on data science and AI, x-ray astrophysics, and astrobiology. The event will conclude on September 30 with lectures on the habitable worlds observatory, payload systems and engineering, and NASA’s long term goals with featured speaker Robert Petre, director of GSFC’s astrophysics science division.
Some Retrievers at the event were there out of general curiosity and some were looking for jobs and internship experiences. Brad Cenko, research scientist at GSFC, shared about the wide array of experiential learning opportunities happening at NASA’s research centers across the country.
“NASA has one of the largest internship programs in the state of Maryland, and students can apply to internships year-round,” said Cenko. This summer, UMBC students secured internship placements with NASA, which included senior Leah Narat, business technology administration, who worked at GSFC as a business intelligence intern.
Interns from the Flight Projects Directorate at NASA Goddard, including Leah Narat, center, tour the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (Image courtesy of Narat)
Narat created and updated databases to track awards given to NASA employees. The agency will use the information to maximize employees’ recognition and success and guide them toward career paths that best take advantage of their strengths.
“Honestly, being at NASA was something that I never thought I would achieve, but I put my application out there, and here I am,” says Narat, who worked as a business intelligence intern at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, this past summer. “It’s been wonderful.”
A 30-year partnership
While a large majority of students made up the attendee list for day one, the event also brought in many faculty and staff interested in collaborating with the agency. “Faculty are an integral part in these collaborative efforts and our goal is to connect them directly with NASA’s scientists and engineers,” said event organizer Laha.
Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby during Lystrup’s visit to UMBC in February 2024. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Currently, more than 250 UMBC scientists and research faculty members are partnering with NASA civil servants and are employed under three major cooperative agreements, of which includes the Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center (GESTAR II); the Center for Space Sciences and Technology (CSST); and the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute (GPHI). The university also is home to the NASA-affiliated Earth and Space Institute based out of UMBC’s Physics Building.
Additionally, nearly 30 of the university’s scientists and research faculty are working on active NASA space missions. That includes the UMBC-developed Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, which was selected as one of the first three instruments to be a part of Artemis III, NASA’s mission that will send astronauts back to the lunar surface after more than 50 years, and UMBC’s Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter wide-angle imaging polarimeter instrument on board NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem spacecraft mission.
“NASA is providing half of UMBC’s federal contract funding—on a national scale, this is really unusual,” says Don Engel, director of the CSST and assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering. “Our NASA partnerships are so cross-disciplinary. All three of UMBC’s colleges are represented with these centers, and that’s extremely significant.”
Register for the remaining NASA-UMBC Interaction Days events here.
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UMBC is collaborating with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to host an interactive, three-day event series that takes a closer look into the center’s current research activity, with...
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