Internships
Between my time in undergrad and graduate school, I completed eight internships/co-op rotations in a variety of different work environments:
Summer 2021 - NASA Johnson Space Center
This was my only internship during graduate school and my last one before beginning full time work! Although I was in the same branch as my most recent tours, I worked on the atmospheric flight side of the branch this time around. My task was a research project to attempt to find the optimal angle of attack profile in an aerocapture maneuver using Direct Force Control (DFC). This was a great opportunity for me to learn about a ton of different fields that I had little to no exposure to previously: atmospheric flight dynamics, aerocapture, guidance algorithms, and optimal control theory. Ultimately, I was able to use both direct and indirect methods of optimal control theory to numerically simulate the optimal angle of attack profile. I published my research from the summer in a conference paper entitled Optimal Angle of Attack Profile for Aerocapture.
Summer 2020 - Blue Origin
I was interested in getting some exposure to the private spaceflight industry, so I took a summer off from my regular NASA Co-Op tours to intern at Blue Origin. Although this internship was at the height of the COVID pandemic and thus mostly remote, I was still able to make the most of it. Throughout my time there, I developed a MATLAB/Simulink testing infrastructure to support Processor-in-the-Loop (PIL) testing, giving me some exposure to embedded software development. I then integrated this PIL functionality into the team’s end-to-end testing framework to support vehicle guidance and control applications.
Spring 2020 - NASA Johnson Space Center
This tour was a continuation of my previous internship in the flight mechanics and trajectory design branch. This time around, the emphasis was on developing large scans of my previously designed partial-TLI alternate missions, so that the solution space could be further analyzed. This tour really allowed me to improve my Python and software development skills by integrating my scan automation logic into our overarching scan architecture. By automating the process of numerically optimizing trajectories across a range of different conditions (launch days, launch times, percent-TLI complete, return times, etc.), I was able to produce 1000’s of optimal trajectories. From this dataset, I then gathered abort performance trends and presented these results to various stakeholders.
Summer 2019 - NASA Johnson Space Center
This was my first internship in the flight mechanics and trajectory design branch where I would eventually hire into full-time. For this tour, I worked on trajectory design for Artemis I alternate missions. Essentially, the idea was that if we were to have some anomalous event during the Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) maneuver to get us out to the Moon, we might still be able to accomplish some major mission objectives even without completing the nominal mission. I designed and developed a trajectory profile for this partial-TLI subspace where Orion would be able to reorient itself onto a lunar free return trajectory and safely come back home.
Spring 2019 - NASA Johnson Space Center
This was my first Co-Op tour as a part of NASA’s Pathways Program, and my first exposure to the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) at NASA JSC. FOD’s motto is “plan, train, fly” and the organization is famous for a variety of reasons: it is the home of the Mission Control Center (MCC), NASA’s astronaut corps, and the many flight controllers who have operated everything from the early Apollo missions to present-day International Space Station (ISS) operations.
This tour really allowed me to develop the “soft” skills that are so important to flight controllers - communication, prioritization, decision-making, and more. I was fortunate enough to also get the chance to do plenty of On-the-Job-Training (OJT-ing), learning from flight controllers’ training during simulations and even real-time ISS operations. On the technical side, I also developed a ground display for use during flight of the Boeing CST Starliner vehicle.
Summer 2018 - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
I had always been interested in working at JPL, and was fortunate enough to receive an offer to join the Psyche team for a summer internship. Though I was joining a systems engineering team, they had actually been looking for a software engineering intern. Luckily, through my internship at Raytheon I had previous exposure to the software they were using - DOORS Next Generation (DNG) - as well as experience with HTML/CSS/JavaScript and a personal love for software development.
My task was to develop a series of web “widgets” that would be integrated into the browser-based DNG software to support requirements development and verification/validation (V&V) planning. Though I am by no means an expert in web development, this task allowed me to be a self-starter and independently learn the software skills I needed to develop these applications. I also co-authored a paper on Early V&V planning for the Psyche mission as a part of my effort this summer.
Spring 2018 - NASA Johnson Space Center
This was my first internship working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Positioned in the Integrated GN&C Branch, I was tasked with supporting Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) analyses for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle as a part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). I quickly delved into our C/C++ simulation framework in order to model the dynamics of the ascent abort cases I was analyzing. In addition to getting some great exposure to software development tools (i.e., Unix environments, Git, etc.) in a larger-scale project environment, I also learned practical applications of the control algorithms and dynamics models that I was learning in the classroom.
Summer 2017 - Raytheon Company
For my first internship as an eager college sophomore, I would work in systems engineering at Raytheon Company (now part of RTX Corporation) in Indianapolis. I was a part of a team working on a modernized situational awareness avionics system for the HH-60G helicopter used by the U.S. Air Force. I performed a wide array of tasks in support of this effort, including requirements documentation using IBM’s DOORS software, a functional hazard analysis for the helmet mounted display system, and testing of the display system. Additionally, I also picked up an extra software development task, and learned HTML/CSS/JavaScript from scratch to enhance the functionality of a Six Sigma project that tracks integration and testing of manufactured assemblies.