Hear stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Learn more about JPL Internships and Fellowships


Jones, a caucasian man, stands beside Robinson, a Black woman, and Wang, a man of Asian descent

A bi-coastal, multi-layered collaboration brings Ph.D. student interns to JPL for a unique opportunity to work on cutting-edge battery technology.


The last six months, interns Loleth Robinson and Jonah Wang spent their days in the Electrochemistry Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, testing, and analyzing novel power-storage cells that are pushing the frontiers of battery technology for space missions.

It’s the type of work that needs to be performed with one’s hands: chemicals mixed, cell casings assembled, wiring tinkered with, batteries cycled.

You can’t learn this in a classroom. At JPL, you can.

Two sets of long black gloves extend from circular openings set into the window panels of an enclosed case. Inside the case are bottles with red and blue caps, wires, and boxes.

Gloves extend from a "glove box" where battery electrolytes are fabricated. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

The lab greets visitors with hands: four arm-length inflated rubber gloves extend as if to grab something. These gloves, inside out and ready to be fitted onto human arms, are connected to a “glove box” — a glass case filled with what looks like pharmaceutical bottles and the metal chemical canisters of a cartoon mad scientist.

It’s all very analog, retro even.

Beyond the glove boxes, a sinuous tangle of cables cascades over the edge of a desk, winding between battery cell prototypes and a potentiostat, an electronic device that measures the current and voltage cycled through the batteries. As electricity hums through this web of hardware, data pours into a series of computers, filling spreadsheets that wait to be analyzed.

For Robinson and Wang — both Ph.D. students at The City College of New York, studying chemical engineering with a concentration on the development of advanced battery technologies for space — getting their hands on this equipment in a NASA laboratory is as good as it gets.

“I don't think that I could have gotten a better opportunity anywhere else, working under brilliant scientists,” Wang says.

Wang wears lab goggles, a blue labcoat with a JPL patch, and purple surgical gloves and holds wires extending from a web of wires festooned with electrical tape.

Wang connects battery cells to a potentiastat machine to cycle and collect data. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

That internship opportunity was the product of a collaboration that spans 3,000 miles and three organizations — JPL, CCNY, and NASA’s MIRO program.

Hands on Hardware, Minds on Missions

From its inception, this collaborative internship program between JPL, MIRO, and CCNY’s Center for Advanced Batteries for Space, now in its third year, sought to bring highly-capable Ph.D. students to JPL to put their minds to work solving problems that are of consequence to actual JPL missions and projects.

“I really wanted to make sure that the students had an opportunity to contribute to something meaningful,” says the interns’ JPL mentor, John-Paul Jones, who helped develop the JPL-MIRO-CCNY internship program. Jones is a battery technologist in the Electrochemical Research, Technology & Engineering Group. He is also the cognizant engineer facilitating the development of batteries for two projects — a lander designed to retrieve samples from Mars and a system of self-guided robots known as CADRE. “So we've tried to make sure that their projects align with something that's mission related.”

Robinson and Wang are focused on the Europa Lander and Venus Aerobot mission concepts — building batteries, performing testing, analyzing data, and meeting with their JPL colleagues to present and defend their work.

“They are right in the middle of cutting-edge battery research,” says Will West, the group supervisor of the Electrochemical Research, Technology, & Engineering, who oversees the interns' work with Jones. “They are being treated on these projects just like the other team members. They're doing experiments, generating data, and interpreting the data as a scientist would. Importantly, they must present and defend their work to the JPL team members. By doing so, they strengthen their scientific rigor and communication skills.”

While current battery technologies, primarily lithium-based, have advanced significantly in efficiency and performance in recent decades, they face certain constraints, including resource scarcity, safety concerns, and performance limitations. The batteries that Robinson and Wang are researching and testing could pave the way for improved energy-storing technologies that are more robust in extreme space-like conditions as well as safer and longer lasting even here on Earth, with potential applications ranging from electric vehicles to grid-scale energy storage.

And what does building and testing batteries actually look like?

First, the students synthesize mixtures of chemicals in the glove box to fabricate a novel battery electrolyte. (An electrolyte is the solution inside a battery that transfers ions between the positive and negative terminals.) They then build the battery cell using little metal cell casings that look like the battery you might find in your wristwatch. This all takes place inside the glove box and a vacuum chamber to avoid exposing dangerous chemicals to open air. Once the cell enclosure is complete, the cell can be removed from the glove box and connected to a set of wires that are fed into a potentiostat. This device measures the characteristics of the battery’s current and voltage and channels that information to a computer, where Robinson and Wang can analyze the data.

“It's amazing getting the hands-on experience,” Robinson says. “It’s an absolutely different experience from what I've seen in the industry and, of course, with just regular school research projects.”

Robinson's long braids fall around her face and glasses as she operates a large dropper with her hands and arms inside the glove box.

Robinson mixes chemicals to create a battery electrolyte formula for testing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

Beyond building, testing, and analyzing battery cells, Robinson and Wang are also scouring related scientific literature to identify promising applications for future battery technologies.

For an internship, it’s no walk in the park.

“It's definitely a lot of hard work,” Wang says. “There's a really steep learning curve. I've learned a lot in a really short period of time. It's really amazing to be able to learn from actual research scientists who are trained in their fields.”

And while interns are not expected to have the depth of knowledge and experience that seasoned veterans do, Jones and West say they want to prepare the students for their paths in rigorous fields of research.

“Obviously we help them,” Jones says. “But I really want them to have some kind of ownership.”

Rob Messinger, the interns’ doctoral advisor, is an associate professor of chemical engineering at The City College of New York and the director of CCNY’s Center for Advanced Batteries for Space, a lab that focuses on upstream and emerging battery chemistries specifically geared toward powering spacecraft.

Messinger says the partnership with JPL has given the students in his program at CCNY an invaluable experience that he could not have created in the lab or classroom.

“It's difficult to even state or articulate the impact that this [internship program] has on CCNY students — scientifically, professionally, and personally,” Messinger says. “They have the opportunity to go into a NASA lab and directly work on NASA-relevant problems. But I think maybe even more valuable to the students is the opportunity to be mentored and trained by JPL scientists and engineers that have accumulated decades of experience.”

The Power Behind the Program

While the internship program is now humming along in its third year, only a few years ago it was just an idea.

In 2019, Jones received an email from Messinger out of the blue about collaborating on a rechargeable aluminum-graphite battery technology; his interest was piqued. As he read further, Jones saw the opportunity to create a unique internship program at JPL and jumped at the opportunity.

Jones had started at JPL in 2013 as an intern, eventually moving on to a Caltech postdoc stint before landing a full-time position back at the Laboratory. This was his chance to pay it forward.

Messinger thought that some of the research his doctoral students had been conducting in his lab at CCNY could be of interest to JPL.

“We had reason to believe, based on some preliminary data and prior work, that this particular aluminum-graphite technology could deliver high power at low temperatures,” Messinger says. “And so that was the initial hook to work with JPL — because those characteristics could potentially be useful for space.”

With Jones and group supervisor Will West on board at JPL, Messinger submitted a proposal to the MIRO funding opportunity made available by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement. MIRO, which stands for MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity, was established to strengthen and develop the research capacity and infrastructure of minority-serving institutions in areas of direct alignment with NASA’s missions.

“I long had the idea of working with JPL,” Messinger says. “And then MIRO was the perfect funding source to enable this unique and strategic partnership.”

After some months of planning, Messinger and Jones launched the JPL-CCNY internship program, which was originally set to begin during the summer of 2020. The timeline, however, was derailed due to the pandemic, but after reworking their approach to accommodate remote collaboration, Jones and Messinger put their first intern, Brendan Hawkins, to work in the summer of 2021.

“It was really challenging to try to teach somebody how to build a battery in a lab from 3,000 miles away,” Jones says.

Fortunately, Hawkins was able to later come to JPL in person and gain that valuable hands-on experience for a few months at the end of the program. Since then, the program has hit the ground running, welcoming two other interns, Harrison Asare and Brian Chen, prior to Wang and Robinson in early 2023.

West says the program is a boon to all involved.

“The NASA MIRO program is funding the grad students, and they're working on projects that we assign here at JPL. We are so impressed with the huge contributions they’ve made to the projects,” West says. “So it's a huge win for JPL and NASA. And I would say certainly a win for the grad students to have this experience and a win for CCNY who is now getting these well-trained grad students back.”

Novel Energy Sources

For their part, the JPL staff say they have benefited immensely from the experience with their interns. West says Robinson and Wang’s infusion of ideas has been invaluable to his laboratory.

“I have been amazed by how quickly they acclimate to this high-intensity environment and contribute almost immediately,” West says. “They bring new ideas and fresh perspectives that have resulted in several journal manuscripts.”

Jones says collaborating with the interns has made him a better engineer.

“I think that the best way you learn something is to try to teach it to somebody else,” Jones says. “And I feel like I've learned an awful lot from this.”

Back in New York, the interns bring renewed energy and practical experience to the Center for Advanced Batteries for Space at CCNY.

“The collaboration with JPL has taken a lot of the research and development that we do here at CCNY, and it has given it life, it has given it applications that are exciting — it puts wind under our wings,” Messinger says.

Charged Up to Take Flight

For Robinson and Wang, neither knows exactly where their careers will take them, but both are certain this experience has opened doors.

“My mentors have tried to teach me how to be a better scientific researcher and how to really design and also do experiments,” Wang says. “That's something that might not show up on paper. Being able to say I worked at NASA is great, but I think actually learning the kind of stuff that it takes to do good experiments — that’s what’s really valuable.”

Robinson laughed recalling the moment she decided to pursue this course of study. She attended Messinger's presentation about his research program and never forgot his closing remarks.

“[Messinger] said the two coolest things to work on are dinosaurs or outer space, and dinosaurs are extinct. So take the second-best thing.”

Robinson, who was born in the U.S. but grew up primarily in Costa Rica, says she could have never imagined where that “second best thing” could take her — from a Ph.D. in New York City to working on spacecraft in Southern California to who-knows-what next.

“[Younger] me would have never thought that I'd be working in a NASA internship and doing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering,” Robinson says. “I couldn't even imagine that this was possible.”


The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

The MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity, or MIRO, was established to strengthen and develop the research capacity and infrastructure of Minority Serving Institutions in areas of strategic importance and value to NASA’s mission and national priorities. MIRO works with 15 Minority Serving Institutions to offer awards that aim to support bright minds in STEM, while also enhancing the capability of institutions to perform NASA-related research and education.

The Minority University Research and Education Project, or MUREP, is a larger program through which the NASA Office of STEM Engagement engages underrepresented populations and minority-serving institutions through a wide variety of initiatives.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: College, University, Internships, Opportunities, College Students, MSP, MIRO, MUREP, CCNY

  • Vince Robbins
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We talked to a few JPL interns about what they've been working on, how they're taking NASA into the future, and what it all means to them.


Despite the challenges of the past two years, it’s been a busy time for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Among the Lab’s activities have been the launch and landing of a new Mars rover, preparations for sending a spacecraft to explore an ocean world beyond Earth, first light for missions studying our changing climate and the universe beyond, and the development of technology to help address the COVID pandemic.

All the while, JPL interns have continued supporting scientists, engineers, and technologists behind the scenes to make those missions and projects happen.

More than 600 summer interns are taking part in that crucial work – both in-person at the laboratory in Southern California as well as from their homes and dorms across the country. In May, JPL welcomed summer interns back on site for the first time since 2019 while continuing to offer remote internships as projects allow.

We wanted to hear what interns have been up to, how they're contributing to NASA missions and science, and what the experience has meant to them. So we caught up with three students who have helped see the lab through the last year or two – and in one case, seven years. Watch their stories in the video above.

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The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Interns, Internships, College Students, Science, Engineering, InSight, Mars, Europa, Ocean Worlds, Enceladus, Saturn, Cassini, Ceres

  • NASA/JPL Edu
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Collage of photos featured in this story.

To gain an edge in one of the world's premier robotics competitions, JPL brought in a team of experts at the forefront of their field – college students. The experience gave the interns and the Laboratory a new perspective on what's possible.


You know that movie trope where a talented mastermind recruits a ragtag team of experts to pull off a seemingly impossible task. That's what I imagine when Ali Agha talks about the more than 30 interns brought to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to take part in one of the world's premier robotics competitions.

In 2018, a group led by Agha was one of only 12 teams chosen worldwide to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, Subterranean Challenge, a three-year-long competition that concluded this past September and brought together some of the brightest minds in robotics. Their goal was to develop robotic systems for underground rescue missions, or as Agha puts it, "solutions that are so state-of-the-art, there's not even a clear definition of what you're creating."

Calling themselves Team CoSTAR, which stands for Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Resilient Robots, the group also included engineers from Caltech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Sweden’s Lulea University of Technology, and several industry partners.

Meet some of the researchers, engineers, and interns who make up Team CoSTAR. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | Watch on YouTube

Interns from across the country and around the world came to JPL to help conceive of, build, and test CoSTAR – a coordinated rescue team of flying, crawling, and rolling robots designed to operate autonomously, or with little to no help from humans. But the interns didn't just come to the laboratory to learn from engineers already well versed in building robots to explore extreme environments. In many cases, the interns were the experts.

"The problem we needed to solve, nobody knew how to solve it, so we needed people who are at the cutting edge of these technologies," says Agha. "We needed to get that one person in the world or a few people in the world who work on that specific camera or sensor or data or specific algorithm to come and educate us."

And Agha knew exactly where to find them: colleges and universities.

The interns' contributions would end up reaching far beyond the challenge. And the entire experience – from the mentorship they received to the technology they developed to the friendships they built – would change the course of their careers.

The Visionary

Even the Perseverance Mars rover, the latest and greatest Red Planet explorer designed and built at JPL, requires a fair amount of direction from mission controllers back on Earth to navigate around hazards and know which rocks to zap with its laser or when to phone home.

Since coming to JPL in 2016, Agha had been researching ways to make planet-exploring robots more autonomous so they could make similar decisions on their own. He was especially interested in autonomous technology for underground environments like caves and volcanoes, where the terrain and visibility make remote guidance challenging.

So when DARPA announced that it was launching a competition aimed at the development of autonomous robots for subterranean rescue missions, Agha jumped at the opportunity.

Agha stands in front of a large projector screen with robots of various shapes and sizes lined up against the wall behind him.

Agha gives a presentation at JPL about the technology developed for the DARPA challenge with CoSTAR's robot squad lined up behind him. | › Watch Agha's talk on YouTube | + Expand image

"It was a very good alignment and a great opportunity for JPL and for NASA," says Agha. "We knew if we can get into this program, it's going to expedite the technology development at a really high pace, and that's going to help NASA and JPL to develop these capabilities [for our own projects]."

But like developing robots for space exploration, the requirements would be tough.

Teams would need to build a robotic system that could autonomously navigate four circuits – a tunnel, an urban underground, a cave, and a combination of the three – in search of scientific "artifacts," or signs of human activity, hidden throughout the course. Then, in just 60 minutes, the robots would need to make their way through winding, cavernous, and dangerous terrain to correctly report the locations of as many artifacts as possible.

There were just 12 months between when proposals were selected and the first event in August 2019. Agha needed a plan – and a team.

The Strategist

Sung Kim first came to JPL as an intern in 2017, a year before the DARPA Subterranean Challenge was announced. A Carnegie Mellon doctoral student researching ways to help robots plan under uncertainty, Kim's childhood dream to work for NASA was rekindled when he saw an internship posting with Agha's team.

"From the first meeting, there was a spark," says Kim of his interview with Agha. "At the time, there were not many people actively pursuing that area [of planning under uncertainty]."

Kim spent that summer at JPL helping the team begin to develop what would later become the backbone of CoSTAR – a system in which robots can analyze their surroundings to find a route that covers as much ground as possible, increasing the odds that they will make discoveries along the way.

See caption.

Kim poses for a picture with the JPL sign at the entrance to the Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Image courtesy: Sung Kim | + Expand image

For JPL's part, such technology could be key to designing robots to explore worlds like Jupiter's moon Europa, where the terrain is still relatively unknown. For CoSTAR, it would improve the team's chances of finding artifacts hidden throughout the challenge course, earning the team points toward a victory.

When JPL's DARPA proposal was selected a year later, Agha eagerly enticed the newly graduated Kim back to the laboratory, this time as an employee and the head of CoSTAR's Global Planning Team tasked with "maximizing the chances of finding artifacts hidden in the environment," says Kim.

Kim would be the first of a wave of students who would come to the laboratory over the next several years to lend their expertise in making CoSTAR a reality. In fact, one of them had already arrived.

The Detective

Xianmei "Sammi" Lei was looking to start over. She had come to the U.S. from China and become a legal permanent resident in hopes of finding better career opportunities. But she worried that her options would be limited while she was still making professional connections and learning English. That's when she discovered community college.

"One of the turning points for me here was realizing that we have something called community college," says Lei. "That gave me a lot of opportunities."

It was at Pasadena Community College that Lei started to build a network of peers and professionals and began her foray into the world of robotics. It was also where her passion for computer science was reignited, setting her on a trajectory to JPL and Agha's team.

"I took the beginning level of C++, and I liked it so, so much," says Lei. "I was like, 'Oh my god, you can realize your dreams through programming. That is so powerful!'"

Lei wears a Team CoSTAR shirt and crouches in front of sign that reads DARPA Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit - To Beta Course.

Lei poses outside the course area holding up nine fingers to represent the number of points won by the team during the Urban Circuit in February 2020. Image courtesy: Sammi Lei | + Expand image

Lei applied for an internship at JPL through the Student Independent Research Intern, or SIRI, program, which is designed to pair students from local community colleges with researchers at the laboratory. She caught Agha's eye thanks to her involvement in a swarm robotics competition. Still relatively new to the field, Lei spent her first internship in 2017 soaking it all in, learning as much as she could, reading papers assigned by Agha, and following him to meetings, she says.

At the encouragement of her growing network, Lei applied and was accepted to a master's program at Cal Poly Pomona. She went on to spend four more years at JPL throughout her graduate degree and the entire DARPA challenge. All the while, she played an integral role on CoSTAR as the person in charge of programming the system to detect the most coveted artifact of all.

"Inside the environment was a dummy that was simulating a human survivor with the same weight, same heat, wearing a safety vest, things like that," says Lei. "My job was to detect those signals with the robot and have it report back to the team so the human supervisor could verify."

But before that could happen, the system would need to overcome any number of hazards, which according to DARPA might include small passages, sharp turns, stairs, rails, large drops, mud, sand, water, mist, smoke, dead ends, slippery terrain, communications constraints, moving walls, and falling debris. The team needed a mobility expert.

The Navigator

"I was doing lots of mathy stuff," says David Fan of his doctoral research at Georgia Tech prior to coming to JPL in the fall of 2018.

Fan had been researching algorithms that could help robots learn to independently navigate complex terrain when his advisor told him about an internship opening on Agha's team with the JPL Visiting Student Researchers Program, or JVSRP. Fan saw it as a chance to take his work out of the theoretical and into the real world.

"Once I joined the team and started working on these robots in real life, it opened up a whole set of new problems that I had never thought about before," he says.

Fan stands with his arms crossed in front of a fake rock wall and spotlights framing a rocky tunnel.

Fan poses in front of the entrance to the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Finals course in September 2021. Fan was one of a handful of team members chosen for the pit crew, which oversaw robot operations during the challenge. Image courtesy: David Fan | + Expand image

Problem one: How to get a robot through a hazard-filled course that requires a system with an almost contradictory set of features – small enough to get through narrow passages but big enough to support computing power, nimble enough to climb stairs and cross slippery terrain but strong enough to withstand falling debris.

Fan spent his early days with the team dreaming up robots with different kinds of locomotion – wheels, tracks, rotors, legs, and so on. Eventually, the team homed in on a solution involving all of the above, multiple robots with unique talents and ways of moving. Fan's doctoral research was key to unlocking how each robot could continually improve their skills, learning to navigate around obstacles as they encountered them.

Like their human counterparts, CoSTAR's robots each bring unique skills to the team, allowing them to autonomously explore caves, pits, tunnels, and other subsurface terrain. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | Watch on YouTube

"Each environment would have its own set of challenges," says Fan, who interned with Agha throughout the DARPA challenge. "Trying to figure out where the robots could safely go in a subway was very different than where they could safely go in a cave or a mine. We broke a lot of robots. It was really fun."

But as often happens in engineering, one solution begets another problem. In this case it was how to coordinate multiple robots and get them working as a team.

The Field Commander

As a child in Indonesia, Muhammad Fadhil Ginting's favorite movie was a documentary about NASA rocket technology built to send astronauts to the Moon. He would watch it and rewatch it, dreaming of one day working at the space agency. But even after he had grown up to earn his bachelor's in engineering and begin to pursue his master's in robotics at one of the world's top universities, ETH Zurich, working for NASA seemed like a distant childhood dream.

That is until he saw an internship opening with Agha's team.

"Back in my undergrad in Indonesia, I was working with underwater robots to explore the ocean. When I found out JPL offered internships with the DARPA challenge team and it was about subsurface explorations, I was so excited," says Ginting who, like Fan, applied through JVSRP, which also brings in a small number of interns from foreign universities to work with JPL researchers. "I met Dr. Agha at an international conference and expressed my interest in joining his team. It was a thrill when he accepted me and welcomed me to the team."

When Ginting came on board, CoSTAR had just placed second in the Tunnel Circuit, the first of the four events.

After helping develop a strategy to coordinate the robots, Ginting was chosen for the team's exclusive "pit crew" along with just four others: Fan, also an intern at the time, and JPL employees Kyon Otsu, Ben Morrell, and Jeffrey Edlund.

On the pit crew, Ginting would have just 30 minutes to set up and release the robots into the subterranean course before he and the others were sequestered in a separate support area from Otsu, the sole robot supervisor. "It meant that I needed to be ready not just for the technical but also operational, anticipating all possible things that can happen in the field."

To prepare both the robots and the pit crew for handling the challenges ahead, the team took multiple field trips around California and to a limestone mine in Kentucky. When that wasn't possible, they sent the robots through cubicle mazes at JPL.

Ginting (shown at 0:18) and other members of team CoSTAR send the robots on a test run through Elma High School in Elma, Washington, in the days leading up to the Urban Circuit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | Watch on YouTube

Ginting fondly remembers the field trips not just for the opportunity to work out any bugs in the software, but also for the chance to pursue his other passion for outreach, giving talks to college students and kids and chatting up locals at the hotel breakfast bar.

"I liked meeting the community and sharing the excitement of building robots, the excitement of space exploration," says Ginting, who also saw the field trips as a chance to bond with his teammates.

When the Urban Circuit came around in February 2020, the team with Ginting's help earned a first-place spot. And then, COVID hit.

About 20 people, many wearing safety vests, smile, clap, hold their hands up in the air, and cheer.

Team CoSTAR reacts to the news that they placed first in the Urban Circuit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

An Unexpected Challenge

Like it did with so much else, the pandemic threw the team and the competition for a loop.

Interns were sent home along with most of the rest of JPL's more than 6,000 employees, and the CoSTAR team had to learn how to do their work remotely. Lei recalls testing sensors from her home in Los Angeles or asking other team members to try them out in different environments.

In some ways, the remote work was good for the team. Rather than the intensive testing schedule, "people had more time for thinking," says Lei. Meanwhile, the team was able to bring on remote interns previously unable to travel to the Southern California laboratory.

The Cave Circuit, originally scheduled for November 2020, was canceled, but once vaccines began rolling out and restrictions on indoor gatherings were loosened, DARPA announced that the Final Event would take place in September 2021.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

A robot shaped like a dog and carrying various tools on its back shines a light into a darkened cave.

One of the team's robots named NeBula-Spot walks on four legs to explore hard-to-access locations, like this narrow cave. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

"We were in pretty good shape – even in the preliminary rounds, we won with a good margin," says Agha. "But in the final event, our calibration system had an issue, so our robots entered the course 30 minutes late. It wasn't the kind of demonstration we were hoping to be able to have, but for that half of the time, it went really perfect."

While CoSTAR did not win the final competition, the overall experience was an unequivocal win not just for the team, but also for the interns and for JPL.

"We got all this great talent and technology – again, huge thanks to our interns and their mentors," says Agha. "They brought all this expertise to JPL, and the amount of capabilities that got developed really changed a lot about [autonomous technology] at JPL. We pushed state-of-the-art boundaries forward. We published strong papers and showed the world JPL's capabilities."

Already, the team's technology is making its way into a number of JPL and NASA projects including a snake-like robot designed to explore deep crevasses on icy worlds beyond Earth, self-driving offroad cars that could inspire future lunar exploration vehicles, and a project researching the possibility of finding microbial life within volcanic caves on Mars.

Many of the interns say the experience changed the course of their careers.

"It really set me on a different trajectory that I hadn't imagined before," says Fan, who is now working for the U.S. Navy in collaboration with JPL on the project to develop offroad self-driving vehicles. "It introduced me to so many of the real-world robotics problems that are out there waiting to be solved. It opened up a lot of doors and introduced me to a lot of people. It completely changed the trajectory of my Ph.D. and my career."

Lei was recently hired at JPL as a full-time employee, and she says she's looking forward to exploring new ways robots can assist humans in the future.

Kim continues to expand his research in new ways, taking part in JPL projects like Europa Lander, which hopes to send the first robot to explore the icy moon considered to be the next frontier in the search for life beyond Earth.

Ginting was accepted into a doctoral program at Stanford and is continuing his research collaboration with Agha and Kim. He says, "Now, I'm so eager to work on robotics research topics that can also work for space exploration."

In July, the entire team of about 150 people plans to meet up for a reunion cake party. Over the course of the challenge, cake parties had become an annual tradition for the tight knit group. They even managed to hold a virtual party in 2020. As with all things CoSTAR, the bakers go above and beyond to make cakes with life-like caves, moving parts, and LEDs.

When we talked, Agha flipped through photos of cake parties past and said that more than anything, it's this – the team camaraderie, the friendships – that is the greatest win of all.


The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Internships, Interns, College, Students, Community College, SIRI, JVSRP, YIP, Higher Education, Robotics, Engineering, Computer Science, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

  • Kim Orr
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We went behind the scenes with three interns on NASA’s Earth System Observatory team to learn how they're devoting their future careers to putting our planet first.


Leave it to the interns at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to school the full-timers. Case in point: JPL intern Joalda Morancy knows exactly how to explain—in bite-sized, plain English—NASA’s latest multi-missioned initiative to study our home planet.

“The Earth System Observatory aims to tackle one of the biggest issues we’re facing today—climate change,” they say of NASA's ESO. “We need to have multiple missions that look at the Earth system as a whole in order to tackle the issue of climate change in the next couple of decades.”

The observatory will be made up of an array of satellites, instruments, and missions to form a well-rounded collection of observations meant to offer crucial and precise measurements of our environment. As NASA puts it: “Taken together, as a single observatory, we will have a holistic, 3-dimensional understanding of our Earth’s systems—how they work together, how one change can influence another.”

While the ESO is in its early stages, it’s a crucial time for interns to be involved, as their generation will most likely face the most pressing challenges resulting from climate change. We spoke to three JPL interns getting first-hand experience with the observatory's missions and projects to learn why, to them, Earth is the most important planet to study right now.

Joalda Morancy

Joalda Morancy smiles in a close-up photo.

Image courtesy: Joalda Morancy | + Expand image

Morancy first became fascinated by space exploration in high school thanks to a YouTube video on how to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich in space.

“I love telling that story,” Morancy says with a laugh. “It was so random, and I was so intrigued. I watched the entire video and thought, ‘This is amazing.’ I did a lot more research about what NASA does and that was my gateway to space.”

Flash forward a few years to college at the University of Chicago, where Morancy discovered there was one planet in particular that really captured their attention: Earth.

“I was initially interested in space exploration, and while [majoring in] astrophysics, I took a class on what makes a planet habitable,” they recall. “It taught me everything about basic Earth sciences and how that ties into Earth and the big picture of how a habitable environment operates.”

Morancy found it so interesting and—combined with their growing alarm about climate change—wanted a hand in studying how to preserve our planet. So Morancy took more classes in geophysics and geophysical sciences, including courses on atmosphere, glaciology, and physical geology.

“I wanted to give myself the foundational knowledge,” Morancy says. “And right after that, I started at JPL.”

They had originally searched JPL’s careers site for internships with the Perseverance Mars rover mission but noticed an opening with the Earth Science team.

“I didn’t know JPL did Earth science; I thought it was mostly Mars and robotic exploration,” they say. “When I saw that opening, I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about Earth.”

For the past year-and-a-half, Morancy has worked on ECOSTRESS, an ESO-related experiment aboard the International Space Station designed to measure water stress among plants. Now, they are interning with the ESO successor to ECOSTRESS, the Surface Biology and Geology, or SBG, mission.

A heatmap showing land surface temperatures in California as measured by the ECOSTRESS mission.

A graphic developed by Morancy during their internship with the ECOSTRESS mission shows the land surface temperatures at different locations throughout California. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption

“I help with a lot of project management since SBG is in its early stages,” they say. “A lot of things are starting to cook up, and a lot of engineers and scientists are being onboarded to the team. I’m working with the team to help onboard, and I’m also helping with the science instruments for SBG.”

The magnitude of being part of SBG and the observatory team in their early stages is not lost on Morancy.

“I really believe it will have a long-lasting impact on how we look at climate change and how we target those specific issues to fix,” they say. “It'll be a major driver for future researchers and scientists.”

While Morancy hopes to combine Earth sciences and space exploration for their future career, they’re invested in studying our blue planet for the long run.

“I think Earth science is incredibly important because this is our only home,” they say. “Even though people are looking to settle on Mars and other celestial bodies ... I think it’s important to take care of this rock we’ve been given to live on. It’s crucial to make sure we take care of it for future generations.”

Rebecca Gustine

Rebecca Gustine smiles for a photo atop an elephant.

Image courtesy: Rebecca Gustine | + Expand image

When Rebecca Gustine studied abroad in Thailand during her junior year of college, she didn’t realize it would alter the course of her studies and her future career path.

“I had a lightbulb moment realizing how human development and access to water go hand in hand,” she says.

Gustine went on to Washington State University, where she is now a Ph.D. student studying civil engineering with a focus on water resources engineering.

“A lot of my undergraduate research had to do with water,” she explains. “It was from a global health perspective and had to do with access to clean water, hygiene, and gender dynamics in developing countries. I also really like math and physics, so combining global health with water resources engineering was very interesting.”

Gustine was so fascinated by water research, she knew she wanted to find an internship that would let her focus on just that. When she saw an open call for internships at JPL, she submitted her resume and was contacted by Gregory Halverson and Christine Lee, JPL scientists focused on using remote sensing measurements to study water quality, water resources, and ecosystems management.

Gustine started at JPL as an intern in August 2020, supporting the Earth science team by looking at how ECOSTRESS data could be used to preserve habitats in the California Bay Delta system, where the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers meet. For the past year, she has focused on processing remote-sensing data and engaging with stakeholders. She was even first-author on a peer-reviewed paper.

“My work is basically using pictures [taken] from the sky that tell us information about the Earth and then making decisions about how to manage water resources and protect critical habitats,” she says.

Gustine is also well aware that her research comes at a pivotal time in the global conversation around Earth’s future.

“Given that climate change is having a profound impact on human and natural systems, we have to understand those changes and protect critical habitats and resources for the well-being of humans everywhere,” she says. “Changes in one component of a system can have cascading consequences for other parts of the system.”

While she works alongside others exploring the mysteries of worlds beyond Earth, Gustine is particularly proud to be part of pioneering research that could alter the future of our planet.

“Observing Earth is still space exploration, just from a different vantage point,” she says. “Given that NASA is the major proprietor of space, to look back at Earth using the same technology we use to go farther into space is important.”

Jonathan Vellanoweth

Jonathan Vellanoweth stands in a grassy field holding a phone in one hand and with a grasshopper balancing on his other hand.

Image courtesy: Jonathan Vellanoweth | + Expand image

What will be the future, long-term impacts of power plants on our environment? Jonathan Vellanoweth is spending his time as a JPL intern working with a team to try to help answer that very question.

Vellanoweth is a student at Cal State University, Los Angeles, where he’s earning his master’s degree in environmental science with an emphasis in geospatial science. In his internship with the Surface Biology and Geology team at JPL, he's using data and satellite imagery from ECOSTRESS and the Landsat mission to detect thermal plumes emitted by power plants.

Vellanoweth’s work currently focuses on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California.

“We’re looking at power plants that intake coastal waters to cool their reactors, then discharge it at a higher temperature back into the same water body,” he explains. “I’m using satellite imagery to detect that thermal change and outline the area of what is classified as a plume, or anywhere thermal discharge is heating up the ocean or the coast. We can see where this plume is moving over the year or several seasons, and other studies can use this data to see what the actual effects are on coastal communities.”

Vellanoweth has been fascinated by Earth science since as early as 7th grade, when he took his first environmental science class where he learned all about the scientific method and later went out into nature to collect soil samples and study them.

As a JPL intern, Vellanoweth has been particularly grateful for the variety of knowledge his colleagues provide him.

“The amount of support that you have from all these great scientists that work here is really what attracted me,” he says. “You can intern for a lot of places, but at JPL, you have all these colleagues you can meet with who have a lot of feedback they can give you. There are people on your team studying similar and dissimilar things as you, so they can provide you with something you might not have thought about and help expand your research.”

Most importantly, Vellanoweth is looking forward to the information everyone will have access to in the future thanks to the efforts of all the missions and projects within the Earth Science Observatory.

“I’m excited about getting things out there and making them accessible to the public. I’m really big on that because there are a lot of people who want to do this kind of research, but a lot of times, it can be hard to find the data or algorithm you need, and it’s a lot of trial and error,” he says. “SBG and ESO bring all of these things together and make it available for everyone.”


The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Interns, Colleges, Universities, Students, Higher Education, Internships, Student Programs, Year-Round Internship Program, Summer Internship Program, Earth Science, Earth, Climate Change, Earth System Observatory

  • Celeste Hoang
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Natalie Deo poses for a photo wearing a shirt with a NASA meatball.

A master's student and JPL intern at 19, Natalie Deo has her sights set on a career at the Laboratory, and she's out to prove it's never too early to pursue your dreams.


To hear Natalie Deo explain why she wanted to leave high school at the age of 14 and go straight into higher education is to hear it from the perspective of a precocious teenager wise beyond her years – and her peers.

“I was walking to first period in high school and I saw a couple making out and I was like, ‘I’m getting out of here. I don’t want to see that,’” Deo, now 19 and a summer intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, deadpans.

Not that she hadn’t thought about fast-tracking it out of high school before that moment, of course. Deo, who grew up in Downey, California, was already familiar with the highly selective Early Entrance Program, or EEP, at Cal State University, Los Angeles that puts gifted students on an accelerated path toward college admission, and she had taken the ACT while in eighth grade. After finishing ninth grade, she was one of a handful of high-school students selected to start her undergraduate studies in electrical engineering at Cal State L.A.

“I was tired of being around people who weren’t as motivated. People were begging me to do their homework or trying to pay me to write their essays,” she says. “While that wasn’t the case with all my peers and some were even really supportive, it was cool to go to college and be around more people who are like-minded.”

Now, Deo is pursuing her master's degree in astronautical engineering at USC while interning at JPL with the team developing the Europa Clipper spacecraft. These days, one could say Deo is constantly surrounded by like-minded folks.

“USC is near home and near JPL, and JPL has been my dream since I knew I wanted to work in space,” Deo says.

Deo wears a black cap and gown with several yellow and black cords and sashes hung around her neck along with a lei with large pink flowers.

Deo at her graduation from California State University, Los Angeles. Image courtesy Natalie Deo | + Expand image

The Early Years

Deo first realized she “really, really loved space” at 13 after winning a telescope from a raffle at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, and found herself looking up at the Moon every night. Shortly after, she started volunteering at the space center every weekend, helping host field trips and robotics labs for young visiting students (something she still does to this day).

During this time, Deo was introduced to a middle-school STEM engineering class when she was in seventh grade.

“My teacher reached out to me and said, ‘You might enjoy it,’ and I thought, ‘Well, it’s either this or band,’” she says.

Deo tried the class, which introduced basic engineering concepts the first year revolving around design, modeling, and the engineering process. The second year focused on automation and robotics, and put students’ skills to the test in regional competitions.

“Before I realized it, I was spending every day after school working in robotics,” she says.

By the time she entered high school, nothing fascinated her more.

“High school was pretty easy for me and what we were learning didn't intrigue me as much as engineering,” Deo says.

Once Deo decided to formally enter EEP, she had to participate in a rigorous summer academy where students are evaluated by college admissions staff on whether they’re performing at a college level. In Cal State L.A.’s program, approximately 500 to 1,000 students apply each year and only about 20 to 30 students are admitted.

Deo was on a road trip with her mother and grandmother when she got the acceptance call.

“I was screaming, and my mom had to pull over because she was screaming,” Deo says. “My brother and dad were at home, and I called them and they were screaming on the phone. There was a lot of screaming.”

Looking back on her time in the summer academy, Deo marvels at the odds she overcame to gain admission.

“I didn’t realize it during that summer, but I was not like most students there whose parents had PhDs and were established in their fields,” she says. “I had parents who immigrated from Fiji. My mom came [to the U.S.] at 8 and my dad came at 22 without a college education. I grew up in a poor area compared to a lot of these students, and I didn’t have the resources to prepare for college that a lot of other students did. I also have Type 1 diabetes. It was special to me [to be accepted into the program] because here was this girl facing adversities of every kind – and she made it.”

While the decision to leave high school was an easy one, arriving at college left Deo grappling with imposter syndrome.

“The first year, I just took general education classes with my cohort [of EEPs] who help you transition, and I was just having fun with them,” Deo says. “Then it kicked in. I had no idea how college worked – my brother was still a senior in high school at the time. I was seeing all these people who were so smart and who came from very affluent backgrounds and who were into literature and stuff like that. I was never really into that. People just knew things I didn’t know and I thought, ‘Should I know that? Do I belong here?’”

Deo credits therapy, talking to friends, and turning to family as ways she coped with getting through those challenging early months. She also still stayed in touch with her childhood friends and took in the high-school experience while in college.

“I still went to prom, football games, and hung out with my friends all the time,” she says. “I was able to have the best of both worlds.”

JPL Internship, Mentorship, and Beyond

Deo leans against the base of a statue of USC's Trojan mascot.

Deo poses for a picture on the USC campus, where she's pursuing her master's degree in astronautical engineering. Image courtesy Natalie Deo | + Expand image

At JPL, whispers of a 19-year-old summer intern getting her master’s haven’t fazed Deo in the slightest.

“I hosted an intern party the other week, and everyone coming in was like, ‘Are you the one who’s 19 and in grad school?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s me, but I’m also Natalie and I have a Lego collection,’ she says with a laugh.

Deo’s intern responsibilities go beyond her years, of course. So far this summer, she’s spent it working on validating and verifying commands being sent to Europa Clipper’s computer system, ensuring the spacecraft’s instruments respond correctly to commands.

While she admits she still struggles with imposter syndrome in the workplace, she’s becoming more and more comfortable as the months go by and she grows closer to her fellow interns.

“The ratio of women to men is much greater here than in my previous internships,” she says. “I see more of myself in the people around me, and that helps me be able to interact with other interns and have them as a support group. I’m hanging out with them every weekend, and I’ve made lifelong friends already.”

Deo is also part of JPL’s Employee Resource Group, or ERG, mentorship program, which paired her up with a secondary mentor – one who supports a mentee outside of the mentorship their manager provides – through JPL's Advisory Council for Women, or ACW.

“This type of mentorship is based on career and academic advice, and to help interns develop their soft skills,” explains Alona Dontsova, who spearheads the program for Human Resources at JPL. “If the manager is concentrating on developing technical skills and how to manage projects, the ERG mentors are helping with networking, looking at their resume, listening to their pitches, or giving them more professional development advice. The ERG mentor is also more focused on teaching interns about the JPL culture.”

Deo’s secondary mentor, Lynn Boyden, is “very glad that the planets aligned that way” for the two of them to be paired up, and is a firm believer that mentoring is a two-way street.

“Learning goes in both directions … and one of the ways we do that is by sharing knowledge across these divides,” she says. “Sometimes there are situations that are beyond an intern’s ability to navigate the institutional practices, and this is where having a mentor with deeper experience in the world of business can be helpful. Also, one of the primary functions of an internship is to help an intern build a professional network, and having another designated person at JPL can only help them extend that network.”

For Deo’s part, she’s thrilled to have someone she can be candid with.

“I can have conversations about JPL that might be intimidating to ask my group supervisor,” she says. “Like, ‘How do I say please hire me without saying please hire me?’”

Deo isn’t shy about her next set of goals, which include being hired through JPL's academic part-time program while she completes her master’s. And while the virtual internship experience has been a challenge for her, “I really enjoy hands-on work,” she says. Deo has felt the rewards of her internship and mentorship every day.

“Honestly, everything has been rewarding: the people, the experiences, and everything I’ve learned,” she says. “I’m motivated by passion and doing what I love, and I’m doing what I love.”


The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Internships, College Students, Europa Clipper, Europa, Engineering, Intern, Higher Education

  • Celeste Hoang
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Yohn Ellis wears a JPL shirt and poses in front of a brick wall.

When Yohn Ellis got his chance to intern at NASA, he wasn't about to let it slip away, pandemic or not. Growing up and going to school in Houston, Texas, the home of NASA's Johnson Space Center, Ellis has long been a superfan of the agency. So when he was offered an internship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, he jumped at the chance. That was before all but a handful of JPL's essential employees were required to switch to remote work. So instead of a hands-on role, Ellis got first-hand experience in how the laboratory overcomes challenges. Returning intern Evan Kramer caught up with Ellis, a grad student studying electrical engineering at Prairie View A&M University, to learn more about his remote internship this past summer, researching how miniature devices could make their way into spacecraft of the future. Ellis talks about how he made the most of the experience while sharing a full house with his family, what it meant to be part of the JPL community, and how he hopes to pay it all forward.

What are you working on at JPL?

I am working with the radar technology team, doing research into nanotechnology [a field of study looking at miniaturized (nanoscale) materials and devices]. When my internship first started, I researched how nanotech is being used in medicine, health, business, and all these other fields. Then, I started to focus on doing simulations of nanoelectronics. I'm working on gaining new insight into nanotechnology to see how we can utilize it for future projects at JPL.

Tell me a bit more about the simulations you're doing. How might your work be applied to JPL missions and science in the future?

On nanoHUB.org, there are hundreds of tools you can use to simulate different aspects of nanotechnology and nanoelectronics. So I've looked into a lot of these tools. I've had to stick to one of the more user-friendly tools, because I honestly haven't had a lot of exposure to nanotech before. So this internship has been a great learning experience for me. Right now, I'm utilizing a simulation of a nano-transistor. So I'm applying different characteristics and settings to generate different effects to see if there are benefits to making our transistors smaller so we could fit more of them into an integrated circuit.

At the core of nanotech, you want to make things smaller and smaller. If we can make spacecraft and spacecraft instruments smaller, then we can do more science while staying within our size, mass, and power constraints. It's not always clear what the benefits of nanotechnology will be until you start experimenting. With this field, there's a lot of information that we can learn through simulations and modeling because we don't yet know about the behaviors of these new materials. That is why it's beneficial to do these simulations and this research.

What is your average day like?

Before the COVID pandemic hit, my project was going to be at JPL, doing hands-on research. But after [most JPL employees went on mandatory telework] I was fortunate enough to keep my internship and transition to a virtual experience, where I could do some research at home using the simulation software.

My average day is very interesting, working from home around the rest of my family. There are a lot of personalities going on. So it might be that the TV is on downstairs or the dog is barking or my brothers are playing a game or my dad is cooking.

But as far as what I have going on, I start my day around 8 or 9 a.m. and work until about 7 p.m. I check in to some of the virtual webinars. There are a lot of great webinars going on for interns about the cool projects people are working on at JPL. I'm also conducting research, running simulations, reading articles, and sharing what I find out with my mentors, Mohammad Ashtijou and Eric Perez. I produce presentations pretty much weekly, if not biweekly, to convey what I've learned, and then my mentors guide me and steer me in the proper direction.

So my days are pretty unique. Working from home has definitely been an adjustment, but there are some benefits to working from home, such as not having to pay as much for gas or commute anywhere. You just wake up and get yourself started for the day. I will say there are some disadvantages, like not being able to actually put your hands on the stuff you're researching, but there's some benefit to running the simulations instead.

What has the experience of a virtual internship been like?

It's a bit of an adjustment, because I'm a very hands-on person. I like going out there and being involved, especially in the workplace and networking. But there is a way to network virtually. I've met some very interesting people and have had a chance to share some of who I am with them, to kind of put myself out there. I even created a virtual newsletter. Every time I network with someone new, I send them my newsletter to bridge that networking gap and paint a picture of who I am outside of the work that I do. I enjoy getting to share that with everyone, and I get a lot of good feedback from it.

Being a virtual intern is something that I'd see myself doing again. I've loved the virtual experience. It's been great. With everything being virtual, I feel like everyone has a little bit more time to interact with you. They're more likely to take that meeting and just talk to you about how your day is going and share how things are going at home for them, too.

So the virtual experience was definitely something that I'll never forget, and I'm super appreciative of it. There was one point when JPL thought they would have to postpone the internship. With me being a full-time grad student, I desperately wanted to have this experience, because I plan to continue toward a Ph.D. Not everyone gets to say they interned with NASA.

I can honestly say that this internship, even though it's virtual, has by far been the most beneficial from an exposure standpoint. The stuff that's being done at NASA-JPL is out of this world. I'm pretty sure a lot of people use that type of verbiage when they talk about NASA, but it really is amazing some of the stuff that I've been exposed to – from the missions that are going on to some of the resources that I have had access to as an intern to develop my skills and network.

What is the most uniquely JPL or NASA experience you've had so far?

Learning about Perseverance, the Mars rover that launched this summer, and hearing first-hand about how it was built, how it's going to collect soil samples, and look into biosignatures – you would think it's science fiction. To me, it's so exciting, because as a youth, I dreamed about working at NASA, and now I'm doing it.

I've also felt a real connection to the culture at JPL. I've felt supported and comforted by JPL as an African-American man during these hardships we've been going through. It's true that JPL is making a lot of advancements in science and space, but I think it's uniquely JPL that there are people there who truly care about you as an individual. They see you, and they hear you, and they want to help you develop as a person as well as an engineer or professional. I really felt as if I was cared for as an individual this summer, and that spoke a lot to me.

I fully agree. I haven't had the life experiences that you've had, but that is certainly something that I feel as well. This is my third internship at JPL, and all the mentors that I've had have really expressed that you're not just here to contribute your labor for 10 weeks. You're here to develop as a person. And they want to help you develop.

Where do you go to school and what are you studying?

I'm wrapping up my Master's in electrical engineering at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college and university [HBCU] in Houston, Texas. My thesis is about machine learning and artificial intelligence. I am utilizing algorithms that do regression analysis to predict ground-water levels throughout the state of Texas. I was recruited to do that research through a program at my university called CREDIT [Center of excellence in Research and Education for big military Data inTelligence.] When I graduated from undergrad and expressed that I wanted to continue to graduate school for my Master's degree, CREDIT extended the opportunity for me to join the study as a graduate research assistant. So I've been doing that for about two years now, and I'm getting ready to transition to a Ph.D. level.

What brought you to JPL for this internship?

I vividly remember being infatuated with NASA as a youth, so much so that my parents ordered me a pamphlet from Space Center Houston with posters and stickers explaining all of the cool things happening across NASA. I will never forget when I was able to visit the center during spring break in 2009. It was by far the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed as a youth.

As life goes on, you don't think as much about your childhood dreams, but every time I saw an opportunity at NASA I applied. When I saw that JPL was looking to take on interns, I was just wrapping up my Master's, and I figured, "Let me give it another shot." I spent a lot of time working on my application, making sure it looked as good as possible. Who would've thought that months later, I would've been afforded the opportunity?

What's your ultimate career goal?

My goal is to develop my career enough so that I can share my experience and passion with others in my community and communities similar to the one I grew up in. I also want to share how STEM benefits society and how a career in STEM is attainable. A lot of times, people say, "I don't like math," or, "I don't like science." Quite frankly, I see myself as someone who didn't like those subjects much either. But I knew that I wanted to work for NASA one day or work in the field of engineering, so I had to get comfortable with those subjects. So my ultimate goal is to know that my career is set so that I can give back to communities where there are people who might be unsure of what they are capable of. I would also like to give kudos to JPL, because I see that they have a lot of involvement with local communities, doing educational outreach.

I fully agree. I've been giving talks to high-school students about the Perseverance Mars rover, and it is the most rewarding thing to see younger students who don't really know what they want to do in the future get excited [about STEM]. Now they're interested, and you can give them the tools to go out and maybe pursue it.

Most definitely. And that's how you pour into the next person so that they can pour into the next person.

How do you feel you're contributing to NASA-JPL missions and science?

I remember early on in my JPL internship, in one of the webinars, they expressed how this experience is meant to ultimately give you exposure but also inspire you to develop yourself. I believe that I'm contributing in that way by being someone who is driven, motivated, and also willing to take those chances to look deeper than the basic assignment.

When you're not in school or interning, how do you like to spend your time?

I'm having a good time with my family. My brothers and I play board games together. I work out sometimes. For the most part, I've been spending time with the family, playing a video game in my free time, shopping online a little bit, and connecting with my frat brothers. I've done a lot of virtual events for people in the community, talking about COVID safety and stressing the importance of voting, with the elections coming up.

I also find myself doing a lot of internal development. So that would be reading a little bit more for pleasure, and also doing some assessments of my goals and budgeting. I like to look at this pandemic as a sort of "halftime" when I can work on some things for me to better develop myself.

My last question is a fun one: If you could have a spacecraft built to study anything you want, what would it be?

I'd like to study how to sustain or better germinate resources on Earth. If we can find a way to learn what's going on globally on a more intimate scale, I believe that would help us utilize our planet's resources more effectively – resources that could pertain to producing more crops for food, for example.

This Q&A is part of an ongoing series highlighting the stories and experiences of students and faculty who came to JPL as part of the laboratory's collaboration with historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. › Read more from the series

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Kim Orr contributed to this story.


The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Higher Education, Internships, STEM, College Students, Careers, Jobs, Engineering, Electrical Engineering, HBCU, Black History Month

  • Evan Kramer
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Christine wears a scrunchy on her wrist while pointing to the 3D printer, which sits on a dresser between a rack of clothes and a flag hanging on the wall.

It sounds like a reality show: A team of six interns working remotely from their homes across the country given 10 weeks to build a prototype lunar spacecraft that can launch on a balloon over the California desert. But for Christine Yuan, a senior at Cornell University, it was just another engineering challenge.

This summer marked Yuan's second time interning with the Innovation to Flight group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The group brings in a collaborative team of a dozen or more interns each year. Their task is to create and test prototypes of far-flung ideas for spacecraft and space technology over the course of their internship. But this summer, with most of JPL's employees still on mandatory telework and interns required to complete their projects remotely, the team had an even bigger challenge to overcome: How could they build a spacecraft together while hundreds of miles apart?

Yuan flashed back to her days using materials from around the house to build props and costumes from her favorite TV shows and games. It was what made her want to become a mechanical engineer in the first place. She had a 3D printer and tools in the apartment she shares with a friend from school. So it was decided. She would build the spacecraft in her apartment and mail it in parts to the other interns working on electronics and software from their respective homes.

We caught up with Yuan to learn how she and the team took on the challenge of building a spacecraft from home, how her childhood hobby served as inspiration, and to find out whether the test flight was a success.

What are you working on at JPL?

I'm an intern with the Innovation to Flight group, which is a team of interns that works with JPL engineers and scientists to take ideas for new kinds of technology or spacecraft from ideation to flight in one summer. The goal is to quickly develop prototypes to see whether an idea is feasible and increase the technical readiness level of various hardware. I was part of the group last summer, too. This summer, we've been split into two groups. The group I'm working with is exploring whether we might be able to use a constellation of CubeSats [small, low-cost satellites] to support robots and astronauts on the Moon. So we're building prototypes of the CubeSats and the communications and navigation technology.

How might CubeSats support astronauts and robots on the Moon?

The goal is to have a couple of these CubeSats orbiting the Moon that can assist with various surface operations, whether it's a rover or a small robot or an astronaut trying to communicate. There are a couple parts to it. One is localization, the ability to figure out where you are on the Moon – sort of like our GPS on Earth – so different assets know where they are relative to each other. The other part is communication. If you're collecting data, the data could be sent from the surface assets to the CubeSats to another surface asset or ground station. The CubeSats could take away a lot of the onboard processing that needs to happen so assets on the Moon could use less processing power.

You're interning remotely this summer. Are you actually building the CubeSat?

Yeah. On the CubeSat team, there are six of us, so we have a couple of people working on the software and then a few of us are working on building the CubeSat itself. I have a lot of tools and a 3D printer, so I'm working on designing the structure and then prototyping it using the stuff I have at home. The team has been getting materials out to me, and I've been printing stuff on my 3D printer and building it out. Then I've been mailing out parts to our avionics people so they can load it up with all the electronics.

Wow. That's so cool. Are you building all of this at home or in your dorm room? Are the people living with you wondering what you're up to?

I spent the first half of the summer in my parents' house, so I was operating out of their garage. Now that I'm back at school, I work from my apartment. I'm living with one of my friends right now. She's also in the aerospace field so she has an idea of what I'm doing. Most of the time we're just working in our rooms, but I normally have a bit more of a "dynamic" going on in my room.

How has the team adjusted to working remotely?

Half the team is returning from last summer, so we've worked together before. But when we were at JPL, it was easier because we could walk back and forth with parts and hand things off.

When we were planning for the summer, we were talking about the different options that we had. I like to build things in my free time, so I have a bunch of different tools. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I was going to be working on the structure anyway. So I said, "I'll build the structure, ship it in pieces to the rest of the team, and give them a detailed explanation or a CAD model so they can assemble it." Our software and electronics guys are coding everything and sharing their files. Two of the team members are roommates this summer, which is really convenient. They're working on the electronics and avionics out of the basement at one of their family's homes. Then, we're just constantly messaging with each other. We talk at least once a day. It helps that we're a small team.

What's your average day like?

I'm on the East Coast, so the time difference hasn't affected me too badly. I wake up, work out, and then I start work. In the morning, I'll check in with different members of the team. I like to have a to-do list, so I normally have one for the week. Depending on what I need to do, my day ranges anywhere from trying to figure out what I need to prototype next to 3D printing something or drilling holes in this or that. I use any downtime to talk to other team members, figure out what they're doing.

How has the remote experience compared with last summer, when you were at JPL in person?

The most disappointing thing was not being able to be at JPL in person with everyone. Last summer, there were about 15 of us all working in the same room together. We'd have big brainstorming meetings, all getting together and working on the white board. It was kind of a chaotic, loud mess, but it was a lot of fun, and we got a lot of work done. I was always moving around, always talking to somebody, always building something or testing something. I really enjoyed working on a team like that. It was very fast-paced.

This summer, it's a little more difficult, because I haven't met half the team members in person, and it's just slower. We're shipping things to one another and some of us are in different time zones. It's just been a little more difficult to get things done as fast. Another big change is that at the end of last summer, we had two flight tests. We launched one of our prototypes on a tethered balloon, and then we tested some of our other projects on a high-altitude balloon. We're not going to get to do that in person this summer.

Do you feel like you still have that team comradery even though you're apart this summer?

Definitely. Half the people are returning from last summer, so we're still pretty tight, and we're all in this together. It may not be as dynamic and as fast-paced as last summer, but we're building something together pretty well and pretty quickly.

What are you studying in school, and what got you interested in that field?

I'm studying mechanical engineering. I got into mechanical engineering for a variety of reasons. When I was younger, I was a huge nerd – I still am. I would spend my summers in my parents' basement, making costumes and props from my favorite movies and TV shows. I realized that I really liked making things. I liked putting things together and seeing them work. I also think space is really cool. I want to be able to tell my future kids and grandkids, "I worked on projects that helped us discover all these things about the universe." There's so much we don't know, and I know I can't learn everything, but I want to be a part of the discovery process. So I took those two things that I'm pretty hyped about, put them together, and decided that I want to be an engineer. I want to build spaceships. I want to help advance science and make new discoveries.

What were some of the props or costumes that you designed as a kid?

I was a big fan of the "Final Fantasy" video game series, so with the little bit of money that I made from tutoring kids, I would go out and buy different materials to recreate some of the props from that game. Lightning's gunblade was one of the things I made that I thought was pretty cool. I'm also a big fan of the "Fire Emblem" series, so I recreated a couple of things from that. I also like making costumes for my friends.

I'm starting to get back into it, because I have a little bit of free time this summer. Me and my friends have plans to make our own lightsabers and just play around with what we can make and what we can do with the budget and tools we have. That's where the challenge is. As a kid, I was so limited by the materials I had available. I thought it was fun figuring out how to make stuff anyway. How can I hammer this out with what I have in my house?

What brought you to JPL for your internships?

I heard great things from friends who had interned at JPL before. It's one of the best places to be if you want to work on space missions. I'd never been to the West Coast before last summer. I'm from Maryland. I grew up in a town about 20 minutes outside of Baltimore. It was kind of scary [to travel so far from home], but I feel like life's about experiences, so I might as well just do it.

How do you feel you're contributing to NASA missions and science as an intern?

I feel like it's impossible for any one person to make an impact alone. I'm part of a team that's helping assist future lunar missions. In the grand scheme of things, it's a small piece of what humanity is going to achieve in the future, but it's rewarding to know that I'm part of it. I know I'm a small piece in the big machine, but it still feels like a lot, because if you take one piece out of the machine, it can break.

That's a great way of putting it.

When you're not in school or interning, how do you like to spend your time? What are some of your hobbies?

At school, I'm involved with a bunch of different organizations on campus. One of my main extracurriculars is that I build UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. I'm also involved with a lot of the outdoorsy groups on campus.

When the weather's nice, which in Upstate New York is not always the case, I like to run. I've run some pretty crazy races – Ragnar races, If you ever heard of those – and a couple of relays around the Finger Lakes. I like to run. I like to hike. There's a lot of beautiful mountains and lakes in the Upstate New York area. I've been trying to explore them. And I like to rock climb. I have a couple of friends at school who are super involved in the rock-climbing community, so they got me into it.

When the weather's not so nice, I like to read. I also started to get back into building props and making costumes, because I finally feel like I have time again to sit down and do that. It's a pretty time-consuming hobby.

Now for a fun question: If you could build a spacecraft to go anywhere and study anything, what would it be?

Theoretically, if you had all the technology to do it, I think it would be cool to see inside a black hole. Send a spacecraft in there, and send data out.

----

Since we last talked, your team finished the CubeSat and tested it in the desert! Tell us more about that and how it went?

The tests went pretty well given the circumstances. The team performed a lot of our tests remotely. We ran simulations to test some of the software. Our mock lunar surface asset was able to drive autonomously. Some aspects of the tests were successful and others could use more work, but we laid down a good foundation for future Innovation to Flight interns to build on. Hopefully our work helped the researchers we worked with from JPL and the University of Colorado Boulder.


A novel approach to developing rapid prototypes for space exploration, the Innovation to Flight program was created in 2014 by JPL Fellow Leon Alkalai, who continues to oversee and guide activities. Coordinated by Senior Research Scientist Adrian Stoica with support over the years from Chrishma Derewa, David Atkinson, and Miles Pellazar at JPL, the program has brought in more than 50 student interns from across the country. Offering students a uniquely collaborative experience developing technology for the Moon, Mars, and beyond, Innovation to Flight has also served as a career pathway to numerous program alumni now working at JPL.

Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: jpl.nasa.gov/intern

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

TAGS: Higher Education, Internships, STEM, College Students, Careers, Jobs, Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Innovation to Flight, Technology Demonstration, Moon, Women at NASA, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

  • Kim Orr
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Collage of intern photos that appear in this article

Most years, summertime at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory arrives with an influx of more than 800 interns, raring to play a hands-on role in exploring Earth and space with robotic spacecraft.

Perhaps as exciting as adding NASA to their resumes and working alongside the scientists and engineers they have long admired is the chance to explore the laboratory's smorgasbord of science labs, spacecraft assembly facilities, space simulators, the historic mission control center and a place called the Mars Yard, where engineers test drive Mars rovers.

But this year, as the summer internship season approached with most of JPL's more than 6,000 employees still on mandatory telework, the laboratory – and the students who were offered internships at the Southern California center – had a decision to make.

"We asked the students and the mentors [the employees bringing them in] whether their projects could still be achieved remotely and provide the educational component we consider to be so crucial to these experiences," said Adrian Ponce, deputy section manager of JPL's Education Office, which runs the laboratory's STEM internship programs.

The answer was a resounding yes, which meant the laboratory had just a matter of weeks to create virtual alternatives for every aspect of the internship experience, from accessing specialized software for studying Earth and planetary science to testing and fine-tuning the movements of spacecraft in development and preparing others for launch to attending enrichment activities like science talks and team building events.

“We were able to transition almost all of the interns to aspects of their projects that are telework-compatible. Others agreed to a future start date,” said Ponce, adding that just 2% of the students offered internships declined to proceed or had their projects canceled.

Now, JPL's 600-plus summer interns – some who were part-way through internships when the stay-at-home orders went into effect, others who are returning and many who are first-timers – are getting an extended lesson in the against-the-odds attitude on which the laboratory prides itself.

We wanted to hear about their experiences as JPL's first class of remote interns. What are their routines and home offices like in cities across the country? How have their teams adapted to building spacecraft and doing science remotely? Read a collection of their responses below to learn how JPL interns are finding ways to persevere, whether it's using their engineering skills to fashion homemade desks, getting accustomed to testing spacecraft from 2,000 miles away or working alongside siblings, kids, and pets.


In the image on the left, Jennifer Brag stands in front of a series of observatories. In the image on the right, her bird is pirched on top of open laptop.

Courtesy of Jennifer Bragg | + Expand image

"I am working with an astronomer on the NEOWISE project, which is an automated system that detects near-Earth objects, such as asteroids. The goal of my project is to identify any objects missed by the automated system and use modeling to learn more about their characteristics. My average day consists of writing scripts in Python to manipulate the NEOWISE data and visually vet that the objects in the images are asteroids and not noise or stars.

My office setup consists of a table with scattered books, papers, and pencils, a laptop, television, a child in the background asking a million questions while I work, and a bird on my shoulder that watches me at times."

– Jennifer Bragg will be studying optics at the University of Arizona as an incoming graduate student starting this August. She is completing her summer internship from Pahoa, Hawaii.


Radina Yanakieva poses in front of a model of the Curiosity Mars rover at JPL

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"I'm helping support the Perseverance Mars rover launch this summer. So far, I have been working remotely, but I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to Pasadena, California, in late July to support the launch from JPL! On launch day, I will be in the testbed, where myself and a few other members of my group will be 'shadowing' the spacecraft. This means that when operators send their commands to the actual spacecraft, when it’s on the launch pad and during its first day or so in space, we'll send the same instructions to the test-bed version. This way, if anything goes wrong, we'll have a high-fidelity simulation ready for debugging.

I have a desk in my bedroom, so my office setup is decent enough. I bought a little whiteboard to write myself notes. As for my average working day, it really depends on what I'm doing. Some days, I'm writing procedures or code, so it's a text editor, a hundred internet tabs, and a messenger to ask my team members questions. Other days, I'm supporting a shift in the test bed, so I'm on a web call with a few other people talking about the test we're doing. Luckily, a large portion of my team's work can be done on our personal computers. The biggest change has been adding the ability to operate the test bed remotely. I'm often amazed that from New York, I can control hardware in California.

I was ecstatic that I was still able to help with the Perseverance Mars rover mission! I spent the second half of 2019 working on launch and cruise testing for the mission, so I'm happy to be able to see it through."

– Radina Yanakieva is an undergraduate student studying aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech and interning from Staten Island, New York.


Aditya Khuller stands with his arms outstretched and poses in front of a model Mars rover in a garage at JPL.

Courtesy of Aditya Khuller | + Expand image

"Our team is using radar data [from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft] to find out what lies beneath the large icy deposits on Mars' south pole. My average day consists of analyzing this radar data on my computer to find and map the topography of an older surface that lies below the ice on Mars’ south pole, while my plants look on approvingly.

I was delighted to be offered the chance to work at JPL again. (This is my fourth JPL internship.) Even though it's better to be 'on lab,' it is an honor to get to learn from the coolest and smartest people in the world."

– Aditya Khuller is a graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in planetary science at Arizona State University and interning from Tempe, Arizona.


Breanna Ivey wears a Georgia Tech T-Shirt and poses in front of a river with her arms outstretched on concrete railing.

Courtesy of Breanna Ivey | + Expand image

"I am working on the Perseverance Mars rover mission [launching this summer]. As a member of the mobility team, I am testing the rover's auto-navigation behaviors. If given a specific location, flight software should be able to return data about where that location is relative to the rover. My project is to create test cases and develop procedures to verify the data returned by the flight software when this feature is used.

My average day starts with me eating breakfast with my mom who is also working from home. Then, I write a brief plan for my day. Next, I meet with my mentor to discuss any problems and/or updates. I spend the rest of my day at my portable workstation working on code to test the rover's behaviors and analyzing the data from the tests. I have a mini desk that I either set up in my bedroom in front of my Georgia Tech Buzz painting or in the dining room.

If I could visit in person, the first thing I would want to see is the Mars rover engineering model "Scarecrow." I would love to visit the Mars Yard [a simulated Mars environment at JPL] and watch Scarecrow run through different tests. It would be so cool to see a physical representation of the things that I've been working on."

– Breanna Ivey is an undergraduate student studying electrical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and interning from Macon, Georgia.


Kaelan Oldani wears her graduation gown and holds her cap while posing in front of a sign that reads 'Michigan Union.'

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"I am working on the Psyche mission as a member of the Assembly Test and Launch Operations team, also known as ATLO. (We engineers love our acronyms!) Our goal is to assemble and test the Psyche spacecraft to make sure everything works correctly so that the spacecraft will be able to orbit and study its target, a metal asteroid also called Psyche. Scientists theorize that the asteroid is actually the metal core of what was once another planet. By studying it, we hope to learn more about the formation of Earth.

I always start out my virtual work day by giving my dog a hug, grabbing a cup of coffee and heading up to my family's guest bedroom, which has turned into my office for the summer. On the window sill in my office are a number of space-themed Lego sets including the 'Women of NASA' set, which helps me get into the space-exploration mood! Once I have fueled up on coffee, my brain is ready for launch, and I log in to the JPL virtual network to start writing plans for testing Psyche's propulsion systems. While the ATLO team is working remotely, we are focused on writing test plans and procedures so that they can be ready as soon as the Psyche spacecraft is in the lab for testing. We have a continuous stream of video calls set up throughout the week to meet virtually with the teams helping to build the spacecraft."

– Kaelan Oldani is a master's student studying aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan and interning from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She recently accepted a full-time position at JPL and is starting in early 2021.


In the image on the left, Richardo Isai Melgar poses in front of a model of the Curiosity Mars rover at JPL. In the image on the right, he kneels in front of a model Mars rover in the Mars Yard at JPL.

Courtesy of Ricardo Isai Melgar | + Expand image

"NASA's Deep Space Network is a system of antennas positioned around the world – in Australia, Spain, and Goldstone, California – that's used to communicate with spacecraft. My internship is working on a risk assessment of the hydraulic system for the 70-meter antenna at the Goldstone facility. The hydraulic system is what allows the antenna and dish surrounding it to move so it can accurately track spacecraft in flight. The ultimate goal of the work is to make sure the antenna's hydraulic systems meet NASA standards.

My average day starts by getting ready for work (morning routine), accessing my work computer through a virtual interface and talking with my mentor on [our collaboration tool]. Then, I dive into work, researching hydraulic schematics, JPL technical drawings of the antenna, and NASA standards, and adding to a huge spreadsheet that I use to track every component of the antenna's hydraulic system. Currently, I'm tracking every flexible hydraulic fluid hose on the system and figuring out what dangers a failure of the hose could have on personnel and the mission."

– Ricardo Isai Melgar is an undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering at East Los Angeles College and interning from Los Angeles.


Susanna Eschbach poses in front of a mirrored background.

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"My project this summer is to develop a network of carbon-dioxide sensors to be used aboard the International Space Station for monitoring the levels of carbon dioxide that crewmembers experience.

My 'office setup' is actually just a board across the end of my bed balanced on the other side by a small dresser that I pull into the middle of the room every day so that I can sit and have a hard surface to work on.

At first I wasn't sure if I was interested in doing a virtual engineering internship. How would that even work? But after talking to my family, I decided to accept. Online or in person, getting to work at JPL is still a really cool opportunity."

– Susanna Eschbach is an undergraduate student studying electrical and computer engineering at Northern Illinois University and interning from DeKalb, Illinois.


Izzie Torres poses in front of an ancient pyramid.

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"I'm planning test procedures for the Europa Clipper mission [which is designed to make flybys of Jupiter's moon Europa]. The end goal is to create a list of tests we can perform that will prove that the spacecraft meets its requirements and works as a whole system.

I was very excited when I got the offer to do a virtual internship at JPL. My internship was originally supposed to be with the Perseverance Mars rover mission, but it required too much in-person work, so I was moved to the Europa Clipper project. While I had been looking forward to working on a project that was going to be launching so soon, Jupiter's moon Europa has always captured my imagination because of the ocean under its surface. It was an added bonus to know I had an internship secured for the summer."

– Izzie Torres is an undergraduate student studying aerospace engineering and management at MIT and interning from Seattle.


Jared Blanchard poses in front of a visualization in the VIVID lab at JPL.

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"I am investigating potential spacecraft trajectories to reach the water worlds orbiting the outer planets, specifically Jupiter's moon Europa. If you take both Jupiter and Europa into account, their gravitational force fields combine to allow for some incredibly fuel-efficient maneuvers between the two. The ultimate goal is to make it easier for mission designers to use these low-energy trajectories to develop mission plans that use very little fuel.

I'm not a gamer, but I just got a new gaming laptop because it has a nice graphics processing unit, or GPU. During my internship at JPL last summer, we used several GPUs and a supercomputer to make our trajectory computations 10,000 times faster! We plan to use the GPU to speed up my work this summer as well. I have my laptop connected to a second monitor up in the loft of the cabin where my wife and I are staying. We just had a baby two months ago, so I have to make the most of the quiet times when he's napping!"

– Jared Blanchard is a graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University.


Yohn Ellis, wearing a suit and tie, poses in front of yellow and gold balloons.

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"I'm doing a theory-based project on the topic of nanotechnology under the mentorship of Mohammad Ashtijou and Eric Perez.

I vividly remember being infatuated with NASA as a youth, so much so that my parents ordered me a pamphlet from Space Center Houston with posters and stickers explaining all of the cool things happening across NASA. I will never forget when I was able to visit Space Center Houston on spring break in 2009. It was by far the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed as a youth. When I was offered the internship at JPL, I was excited, challenged, and motivated. There is a great deal of respect that comes with being an NASA intern, and I look forward to furthering my experiences.

But the challenges are prevalent, too. Unfortunately, the internship is completely virtual and there are limitations to my experience. It is hard working at home with the multiple personalities in my family. I love them, but have you attempted to conduct research with a surround system of romantic comedies playing in the living room, war video games blasting grenades, and the sweet voice of your grandmother asking for help getting pans from the top shelf?"

– Yohn I. Ellis Jr. is a graduate student studying electrical engineering at Prairie View A&M University and interning from Houston.


Mina Cezairli wears a NASA hat and poses in front of a landscape of green mountains a turqoise ocean and puffy white and grey clouds.

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"This summer, I am supporting the proposal for a small satellite mission concept called Cupid’s Arrow. Cupid’s Arrow would be a small probe designed to fly through Venus’ atmosphere and collect samples. The ultimate goal of the project is to understand the “origin story” of Venus' atmosphere and how, despite their comparable sizes, Earth and Venus evolved so differently geologically, with the former being the habitable, friendly planet that we call home and the latter being the hottest planet in our solar system with a mainly carbon dioxide atmosphere.

While ordinary JPL meetings include discussions of space probes, rockets, and visiting other planets, my working day rarely involves leaving my desk. Because all of my work can be done on my computer, I have a pretty simple office setup: a desk, my computer, and a wall full of posters of Earth and the Solar System. An average day is usually a combination of data analysis, reading and learning about Venus, and a number of web meetings. The team has several different time zones represented, so a morning meeting in Pacific time accommodates all of Pacific, Eastern and European time zones that exist within the working hours of the team."

– Mina Cezairli is an undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering at Yale University and is interning from New Haven, Connecticut.


Izabella Zamora sits on steps leading up to a building with pumpkins decorating the steps to her right.

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“I'm characterizing the genetic signatures of heat-resistant bacteria. The goal is to improve the techniques we use to sterilize spacecraft to prevent them from contaminating other worlds or bringing contaminants back to Earth. Specifically, I'm working to refine the amount of time spacecraft need to spend getting blasted by dry heat as a sanitation method.

"As someone who has a biology-lab heavy internship, I was quite skeptical of how an online internship would work. There was originally supposed to be lab work, but I think the project took an interesting turn into research and computational biology. It has been a really cool intersection to explore, and I have gained a deeper understanding of the math and analysis involved in addition to the biology concepts."

– Izabella Zamora is an undergraduate student studying biology and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and interning from Brimfield, Massachusetts.


Leilani Trautman poses for a photo at an outside table. The back of her open laptop has dozens of stickers attached to it, including a NASA meatball.

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"I am working on the engineering operations team for the Perseverance Mars rover. After the rover lands on Mars, it will send daily status updates. Every day, an engineer at JPL will need to make sure that the status update looks healthy so that the rover can continue its mission. I am writing code to make that process a lot faster for the engineers.

When I was offered the internship back in November, I thought I would be working on hardware for the rover. Once the COVID-19 crisis began ramping up and I saw many of my friends' internships get cancelled or shortened, I was worried that the same would happen to me. One day, I got a call letting me know that my previous internship wouldn't be possible but that there was an opportunity to work on a different team. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to retain my internship at JPL and get the chance to work with my mentor, Farah Alibay, who was once a JPL intern herself."

– Leilani Trautman is an undergraduate student studying electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and interning from San Diego, California.


Kathryn Chamberlin poses for an outdoor photo in front of a green hedge.

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"I am working on electronics for the coronagraph instrument that will fly aboard the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The Roman Space Telescope will study dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets [planets outside our solar system]. The science instrument I'm working on will be used to image exoplanets. It's also serving as a technology demonstration to advance future coronagraphs [which are instruments designed to observe objects close to bright stars].

I was both nervous and excited to have a virtual internship. I’m a returning intern, continuing my work on the coronagraph instrument. I absolutely love my work and my project at JPL, so I was really looking forward to another internship. Since I’m working with the same group, I was relieved that I already knew my team, but nervous about how I would connect with my team, ask questions, and meet other 'JPLers.' But I think my team is just as effective working virtually as we were when working 'on lab.' My mentor and I have even figured out how to test hardware virtually by video calling the engineer in the lab and connecting remotely into the lab computer."

– Kathryn Chamberlin is an undergraduate student studying electrical engineering at Arizona State University and interning from Phoenix.


Daniel Stover is shown in a screengrab from a web meeting app pointing to an illustration of the Perseverance Mars rover.

Courtesy of Daniel Stover | + Expand image

"I am working on the flight system for the Perseverance Mars rover. The first half of my internship was spent learning the rules of the road for the entire flight system. My first task was updating command-line Python scripts, which help unpack the data that is received from the rover. After that, I moved on to testing a part of the flight software that manages which mechanisms and instruments the spacecraft can use at a certain time. I have been so grateful to contribute to the Perseverance Mars rover project, especially during the summer that it launches!

I have always been one to be happy with all the opportunities I am granted, but I do have to say it was hard to come to the realization that I would not be able to step foot on the JPL campus. However, I was truly grateful to receive this opportunity, and I have been so delighted to see the JPL spirit translate to the online video chats and communication channels. It's definitely the amazing people who make JPL into the place that everybody admires. Most important, I would like to thank my mentor, Jessica Samuels, for taking the time to meet with me every day and show me the true compassion and inspiration of the engineers at JPL."

– Daniel Stover is an undergraduate student studying electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech and interning from Leesburg, Virginia.


In the image on the left, Sophia Yoo poses for a selfie. In the image on the right, her laptop, mouse, headphones and open notebook are shown at a table outside surrounded by a wooden porch and a green landscape.

Courtesy of Sophia Yoo | + Expand image

"I'm working on a project called the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, or MAIA. It's an instrument that will go into lower Earth orbit and collect images of particulate matter to learn about air pollution and its effects on health. I'm programming some of the software used to control the instrument's electronics. I'm also testing the simulated interface used to communicate with the instrument.

I was ecstatic to still have my internship! I'm very blessed to be able to do all my work remotely. It has sometimes proven to be a challenge when I find myself more than four layers deep in virtual environments. And it can be confusing to program hardware on the West Coast with software that I wrote all the way over here on the East Coast. However, I've learned so much and am surprised by and grateful for the meaningful relationships I've already built."

– Sophia Yoo is an incoming graduate student studying electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University and is interning from Souderton, Pennsylvania.


Natalie Maus can be seen in the right corner of the image as she looks at a graph on her laptop.

Courtesy of Natalie Maus | + Expand image

"My summer research project is focused on using machine-learning algorithms to make predictions about the density of electrons in Earth’s ionosphere [a region of the planet's upper atmosphere]. Our work seeks to allow scientists to forecast this electron density, as it has important impacts on things such as GPS positioning and aircraft navigation.

Despite the strangeness of working remotely, I have learned a ton about the research process and what it is like to be part of a real research team. Working alongside my mentors to adapt to the unique challenges of working remotely has also been educational. In research, and in life, there will always be new and unforeseen problems and challenges. This extreme circumstance is valuable in that it teaches us interns the importance of creative problem solving, adaptability, and making the most out of the situation we are given."

– Natalie Maus is an undergraduate student studying astrophysics and computer science at Colby College and interning from Evergreen, Colorado.


Lucas Lange wears hiking gear and poses next to an American Flag at the top of a mountain with a valley visible in the background.

Courtesy of Lucas Lange | + Expand image

"I have two projects at JPL. My first project focuses on the Europa Clipper mission [designed to make flybys of Jupiter's moon Europa]. I study how the complex topography on the icy moon influences the temperature of the surface. This work is crucial to detect 'hot spots,' which are areas the mission (and future missions) aim to study because they might correspond to regions that could support life! My other work consists of studying frost on Mars and whether it indicates the presence of water-ice below the surface.

JPL and NASA interns are connected through social networks, and it's impressive to see the diversity. Some talks are given by 'JPLers' who make themselves available to answer questions. When I came to JPL, I expected to meet superheroes. This wish has been entirely fulfilled. Working remotely doesn't mean working alone. On the contrary, I think it increases our connections and solidarity."

– Lucas Lange is an undergraduate student studying aerospace engineering and planetary science at ISAE-SUPAERO [aerospace institute in France] and interning from Pasadena, California.


Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: jpl.nasa.gov/intern

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

TAGS: Higher Education, Internships, STEM, College Students, Virtual Internships, Telework, Mars 2020 interns, Mars 2020, Perseverance, DSN, Deep Space Network, Mars, Asteroids, NEOWISE, Science, Technology, Engineering, Computer Science, Psyche, International Space Station, ISS, Europa, Jupiter, Europa Clipper, trajectory, nanotechnology, Cupid's Arrow, Proposal, Venus, Planetary Protection, Biology, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Dark Matter, Exoplanets, Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, MAIA, Earth, Earth science, air pollution, Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Earth Science, Earth, Climate Change, Sea Level Rise

  • Kim Orr
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Farah Alibay, wearing a white lab coat, poses for a photo in front of an engineering model of the Curiosity rover

It only takes minutes into a conversation with Farah Alibay about her job at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to realize there's nowhere else she'd rather be. An engineer working on the systems that NASA's next Mars rover will use to maneuver around a world millions of miles away, Alibay got her start at JPL as an intern. In the six years since being hired at the Laboratory, she's worked on several projects destined for Mars and even had a couple of her own interns. Returning intern Evan Kramer caught up with Alibay to learn more about her current role with the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, how her internships helped pave her path to JPL and how she hopes interns see the same "beauty" in the work that she does.

What do you do at JPL?

I’m a systems engineer. I have two jobs on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission right now. One is the systems engineer for the rover's attitude positioning and pointing. It's my job to make sure that once it's on the surface of Mars, the rover knows where it's pointed, and as it's moving, it can update its position and inform other systems of where it is. So we use things like a gyroscope and imagery to figure out where the rover is pointed and where it's gone as it's traveling.

My other job is helping out with testing the mast [sometimes called the "head"] on the rover. I help make sure that all of the commands and movements are well understood and well tested so that once the rover gets to Mars, we know that the procedures to deploy the mast and operate all of the instruments are going to work properly.

This is probably a tough question to answer, but what is an average day like for you?

Right now, I spend a lot of time testing – either developing procedures, executing procedures in the test bed or reviewing data from the procedures to make sure we're testing all of our capabilities. We start off from requirements of what we think we should be able to do, and then we write our procedures to test out those requirements. We test them out with software, and then we come to the test bed to execute them on hardware. Things usually go wrong, so we'll repeat the procedures a few times. Eventually, once we think we've had a successful run, we have a review.

Most of my testing is on the mobility side. However, it hasn't really started in earnest yet since we're waiting for the rover's "Earth twin" [the engineering model] to be built. Once that happens, later this summer, I will be spending a good chunk of my time in the Mars Yard [a simulated Mars environment at JPL], driving the rover around and actually using real data to figure out whether the software is behaving properly.

Watch the latest video updates and interviews with NASA scientists and engineers about the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, launching to the Red Planet in summer 2020. | Watch on YouTube

What's the ultimate goal of your work at JPL?

All the work that I do right now is in support of the Perseverance rover mission. On the mobility team, we work on essential functions that are going to be used as the rover drives around on Mars.

One of the really neat things about Perseverance is that it can do autonomous driving. So the rover is able to drive up to 200 meters on its own, without us providing any directional information about the terrain. Working on this new ability has been the bulk of testing we're doing on the mobility team. But this new capability should speed up a lot of the driving that we do on Mars. Once we get smart in planning rover movements, we'll be able to plan a day's worth of activity and then tell the rover, "Just keep going until you're done."

You came to JPL as an intern. What was that experience like and how did it shape what you're doing now?

I spent two summers as an intern at JPL during my Ph.D. The first one was in 2012, which was the summer that the Curiosity Mars rover landed. That was a pretty incredible experience. As someone who had only spent one summer at NASA before, seeing the excitement around landing a spacecraft on Mars, well, I think it's hard not to fall in love with JPL when you see that happen. During that summer, I worked on the early days of the A-Team [JPL's mission-concept study team], where I was helping out with some of the mission studies that were going on.

My second summer, I worked in the Mars Program Office, looking at a mission concept to return samples from Mars. I was helping define requirements and look at some of the trade studies. We were specifically looking at designs for orbiters that could bring back samples from Mars. A lot of that fed into my graduate research. It's pretty cool to be able to say that I applied my research and research tools to real problems to help JPL's Mars sample return studies.

What brought you to JPL for your internship? Was working at JPL always a dream for you?

Yeah, working at NASA was always a dream, but going into my Ph.D., I became more and more interested in robotics and planetary exploration. I have a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, but I also have a minor in planetary science. There are very few places on Earth that really put those two together besides JPL, and it's the only place that has successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars. So, given my passions and my interests, JPL emerged at the top of my list very, very quickly. Once I spent time here, I realized that I fit in. My work goals and my aspirations fit into what people were already doing here.

What moments or memories from your internships stand out the most?

The Curiosity landing was definitely one of the highlights of my first internship.

Another one of the highlights is that JPL takes the work that interns do really seriously. I was initially surprised by that, and I think that's true of every intern I've met. Interns do real work that contributes to missions or research. I remember, for example, presenting some of my work to my mentor, who was super-excited about some of the results I was getting. For me, that was quite humbling, because I saw my research actually helping a real mission. I think I'll always remember that.

How do you think your internship shaped your career path and led to what you're doing now?

My internships definitely opened a lot of doors for me. In particular, during my second internship, I also participated in the Planetary Science Summer School at JPL. Throughout the summer, we met with experts in planetary science to develop a mission concept, and then we came together as a team to design the spacecraft in one week! It was an intense week but also an extremely satisfying one. The highlight was being able to present our work to some of the leading engineers and scientists at JPL. We got grilled, and they found a whole lot of holes in our design, but I learned so much from it. How often do you get to have your work reviewed by experts in the field?

Through these experiences, I made a lot of connections and found mentors who I could reach out to. Since I knew JPL is where I wanted to be, I took it upon myself to knock on every single door and make my case as to why JPL should hire me. I actually never interviewed, because by then, they decided that I had done my own interviews!

My internships and the summer school also gave me an idea of what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. So I was a step ahead of other applicants. I always tell interns who come to JPL that if they're not particularly liking their work in the first few weeks, they should take the opportunity to go out and explore what else JPL has to offer. I believe that there's a place for everyone here.

Have you had your own interns before?

I had interns my first two summers working at JPL. Two of my interns are now also full-time employees, and I always remind them that they were my interns when I see them! I also have an intern this summer who I'm extremely excited to work with, as she'll be helping us prepare some of the tools we'll need for operating the Perseverance rover on Mars.

What is your mentorship style with interns?

My goal for interns is mostly for them to learn something new and discover JPL, so I usually let my interns drive in terms of what they want to achieve. Normally, I sit down with them at the start of summer and define a task, because we want them to be doing relevant work. But I encouraged them to take time off from what they're doing and explore JPL, attend events that we have organized for interns and decide whether this is a place for them or not.

It's kind of a dual mentorship. I mentor them in terms of doing their work, but also mentor them in terms of helping them evolve as students and as early career engineers.

What do you hope they take away from their experience?

I hope they take advantage of this unique place and that they fall in love with it the way I did. Mostly, though, I'm hoping they discover whether this is a place for them or not. Whatever it is, I want them to be able to find their passion.

What would be your advice for those looking to intern or work at JPL one day?

I think the way into JPL, or whatever career that you're going to end up in, is to be 100% into what you're doing. If you're in school, studying aerospace engineering or mechanical engineering, do hands-on projects. The way I found opportunities was through the Planetary Science Summer School and the Caltech Space Challenge, which were workshops. I also did something called RASC-AL, which is a different workshop from the National Institute of Aerospace. Do all of those extracurricular things that apply your skills and develop them.

If you have the opportunity to attend talks, or if your advisor gives you extra work that requires you to reach out to potential mentors, take the time to do it.

My other piece of advice is to knock on doors and talk to people who do something in your field that you're interested in. Don't be shy, and don't wait for opportunities to come to you. Especially if you're already at JPL, or if you have mentors that are. Leverage that network.

Last question: If you could play any role in NASA's mission to send humans back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars, what would it be?

I chose to come to JPL because I like working on robotic missions. However, a lot of these robotic missions are precursors to crewed lunar and Mars missions. So I see our role here as building up our understanding of Mars and the Moon [to pave the way for future human missions].

I've worked on different Mars missions, and every one has found unexpected results. We're learning new things about the environment, the soil and the atmosphere with every mission. So I already feel like my work is contributing to that. And especially with the Perseverance rover mission, one of its main intentions is to pave the way for eventually sending humans to Mars.

This story is part of an ongoing series about the career paths and experiences of JPL scientists, engineers, and technologists who got their start as interns at the Southern California laboratory. › Read more from the series

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The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.

TAGS: Mars, Mars Rover, Perseverance, Mars 2020, Mars 2020 Interns, PSSS, Planetary Science Summer School, Internships, Workshops, Career Advice, Mentors, Where Are They Now, Women at NASA

  • Evan Kramer
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