National Space Club Scholars Program:
Scholars Page

This page provides details of the most recent Scholars Program class, including the names and school affiliations of the student interns at both the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Wallops Flight Facility. In addition, items of interest concerning the Club's Youth Education activities in general and those involving past NSC Scholars, will be posted under the section heading NSC Scholars News immediately below.

NSC Scholars News

Annual Youth Education Luncheon

The Annual Youth Education Luncheon took place at the Goddard Employees Welfare Association's "Barney and Bea Recreation Center", NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, on Tuesday, August 2, 2011. This event takes place each year near the conclusion of the six-week internship of the NSC Scholars Program, and provides the opportunity for the students, their families and their mentors to mingle and share stories of the experience, and for the National Space Club to honor the achievements of these talented young people. In addition, the winners of the regional Science Fairs, judged by officers and friends of the National Space Club, are included in this celebration of the Club's activities in youth education in support of science and engineering.

A short program followed lunch, Dean Kern, Deputy Education Officer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, provided the Welcome comments. Program Coordinator Diane Cockrell then introduced the student speakers, Rebecca Arbacher, Cecilia Sanders, Markus Proctor, and Kathryn Gaverth who offered their views of "The Internship Experience.” Diane Cockrell awarded Certificates of Achievement to the 2011 Scholars. Closing remarks were made by Suzy Sterner, 1st Vice President of National Space Club.

2011 Scholars Program Participant: Becca Arbacher

I’m Becca Arbacher, and I’m just about to start my senior year in the Math, Science, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School. The program I’m in at school requires the completion of an internship between junior and senior year. That’s not to say that’s the only reason I’m here…it just means that I’ve been thinking about where I wanted to do my internship since freshman year. Most of my friends have spent the summer pipetting various substances at NIH; let’s just say that’s not really my thing. I was the kid who was reading about stellar evolution instead of playing with video games or Barbies. I couldn’t think of a place I’d want to work other than Goddard, which explains the ridiculous victory dance I performed after getting the call from Ms. Cockrell that I had a spot for the summer.

I’ve spent the past six weeks working with Dr. Benson of the Heliophysics department. My project revolves around the impact of solar and magnetic storms on the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere. I came to the internship with some general scientific background, but not any particular expertise—if you’d asked me what electron cyclotron resonance was at the beginning of the summer, I’d have directed you to Google and wished you luck. With the assistance of the 10 inch stack of scientific papers sitting on my desk and several full filing cabinets should I ever run out, Dr. Benson patiently and meticulously taught me everything I’d need to complete my work over the course of the summer. I was surprised and excited that I was doing “real science”; as a high schooler in an environment where the majority have their PhDs. It was really gratifying that I was actually contributing something useful.

Everyone here at Goddard has been wonderfully accommodating and helpful; they have endured my incessant questions, given tours of their labs, and taken the time to try and explain some of the most difficult and complex concepts being researched today. It was incredible to be able to talk to so many professionals actually working in fields I’d love to pursue. I’ve learned more from the many seminars and lectures than I could ever hope to learn from any textbook, not to mention the barrage of college advice from all quarters. The other interns were fun to be around, and I think I’ve had enough Chipotle to last me the rest of the summer (some may question if this is possible…it is).

Dr. Benson has told me many times over that you can never have a bad experience; you can only find out what you don’t like. Sorry for being cliché, but this summer, I’ve found out what I DO like: my internship here at Goddard has reinforced my love for science and research. We all owe a thank you to the National Space Club for making these internships possible, and also to all the Goddard employees who helped us to get as much as possible out of this incredible opportunity.

2011 Scholars Program Participant: Cecilia Sanders

Hello, everyone. I’m Cecilia Sanders. I’m a rising senior at Huntingtown High School in southern Maryland, and I’ve spent the past six weeks or so masquerading as a scientist in the Planetary Systems department in Building 34. I say “masquerading,” because in all of this time, it has been extremely difficult to think of myself as a Goddard employee…or a “colleague” to the many brilliant and innovative people here at Goddard.

I applied for this program – the National Space Club Scholars program – over the fall and winter of my junior year. It was one of several internship applications I sent out in a frenzy of pre-college work ethic. Up till then, during my entire secondary school experience, it had been perfectly acceptable to just be interested in science, to dabble in music, to read recreationally and just be generally indecisive about life. But that all changed, and quickly. I was seized with the idea that I had to decide what kind of science I wanted to do in my life. NASA, put rather simply, is a serious name within and without the scientific community. Everyone knows that’s where the rocket scientists are, that’s where they keep the giant centrifuges and space instruments! Of all the programs I applied to, NASA promised to expose me to the greatest number of fascinating and wonderful fields and industries, and to provide me with some kind of direction as I sailed ever-more-perilously towards university and my professional career.

I applied to five different projects, the online names and descriptions of which seemed to be written in some variety of ancient Greek. My application essays were short and repetitive: “Hi. I know some programming, I’m savvy with a computer, I like data and laboratories, and I have no idea what you need me to do this summer, but it sounds incredible.” Thankfully, this was enough, and I was assigned my mentor Terry Hurford in the Planetary Systems Lab.

Mr. Hurford has been able to give me an open and honest look into the life of the scientist I so dearly want to become. Not just the exciting moments, where the data suddenly comes together for some grand revelation or you watch the last shuttle blast into space, but also the tedious moments, the nerve-wracking moments, and the thoughtful moments.

My work this summer, in a nutshell, involved organizing, modeling, and analyzing spectral data from the moons of Saturn. This data was collected by the CIRS instrument aboard the Cassini Spacecraft, which blasted off and has been careening around the solar system since 1997.

Now, there are plenty of pictures of Earth’s moon, and Mars, and Earth floating around out there, and a lot of science and engineering has gone into studying them. I found my project exciting and remarkable by comparison, because very few images of objects like Saturn’s moons exist. And very little has been done with the data available. My mentor had me hash out the math and programming necessary to understand and manipulate this data before he stepped in with a fancy new programming system I had never heard of before and showed me how the “big kids” do it. But the whole process of solving problems myself and understanding the math behind and the purpose of my work led me to a new depth of comprehension and appreciation for the field.

The hope now is that my work and the data that I’ve worked so closely with these past weeks will go towards answering questions about the chemical compositions and properties of Saturn’s fascinating moons, which are really unique and beautiful worlds in their own right…

But getting back to my internship itself… I’ve accumulated a tremendous volume of knowledge about spectra and planetary science through independent research as well as through my mentor and his colleagues, but an even more incredible volume of questions. One of the scientists here told me during my time at Goddard that, “it isn’t science…” if you’re done, if you’ve run out of questions to ask and ideas to test. And this realization that work is never done, that there’s still more out there to learn and study and read spectra for was perhaps the most important lesson I learned here at Goddard Space Flight Center.

So did I find that rudder that I hoped to find at NASA? Did my plans and goals for a career in scientific research get any clearer? Not exactly. If anything, I’ve learned that there are at least 10 different fields of science and engineering and project management that I would love to be a part of. But far from confusing my plans for the future, the knowledge of these new fields and my experiences in these facilities have made it okay to be unsure, okay to still have questions to ask and areas of study to choose from. If I can’t decide between biology and astrophysics, hey! I can be an astrobiologist! If I can’t decide between computer science and the research sector, hey! I can be a planetary scientist! NASA has taught me that science is too broad and too full of fascinating questions to really be attacked at one angle for the rest of your life.

So in closing I would like to thank my wonderful mentor, Mr. Terry Hurford, who introduced me to the world of scientific research and who has most certainly reinforced my desire to study our wonderful, wonderful universe… I would like to thank my fellow interns, for helping me feel more at home in what would otherwise be a very intimidating environment… I would like to thank our program coordinators, Diane Cockrell and Katherine Bender, who went out of their way to keep the interns connected and in-the-loop of Goddard events and opportunities. I would like to thank my parents and the Keller family for providing me with that invaluable service of transportation to and from Goddard every day of the week. And finally, I would like to thank the National Space Club, whose generosity in sponsoring interns gave me the chance to pursue a possible future and be a part of something so phenomenal as the scientific community here at Goddard Space Flight Center. Thank you all.

2011 Scholars Program Participant: Kathryn Gaverth

Good afternoon mentors, parents, National Space Club representatives, branch heads, fellow interns, and also everyone else here who has had a great impact on my life. By this I mean to say that literally everyone in this room has significantly influenced my life. I’m Katie Gaverth, a recent graduate of Reservoir High School in Fulton, Maryland and I’ll be attending the University of Maryland at College Park in the fall. This summer, through the National Space Club Scholars Program, I was fortunate enough to intern with Mr. Brendan McAndrew in the Optical Calibration Lab, code 551 in Building 5 here at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Everyone here has changed my life because it took the efforts of every person here to create the amazing summer experience I’ve been living through these past six weeks. Albert Einstein once said “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” Well, everyone here contribute in providing all of us with the best conditions for us to learn and succeed.

For me, the start of my internship was fairly rocky. Over the school year I took part in my school’s Intern/Mentor Program in the G/T Research department and I was given the opportunity to work with Synthia Tonn on the structure of the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) to be launched next December on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), later to be called Landsat 8 and gave a speech about my work at the Howard County Gifted and Talented Student Learning Conference where NASA’s own Chief Scientist Dr. James Garvin attended as the keynote speaker. What I also got through this program was the opportunity to apply for a summer internship, along with a letter of recommendation from my mentor. I had applied the previous summer, but I hadn’t been accepted. I wanted to try again anyway, just in case I was lucky enough to get an additional chance to pursue my passion at NASA. With school, my internship, college applications, my real job, and other extra-curricular activities taking up so much of my time, I got really caught up in trying to do everything I needed to do and trying to make responsible, adult decisions about sacrificing more of my free time to try to secure a better future. Such is the life of high school seniors. Well, when I discovered I had been accepted into the program, I was completely ecstatic and immediately filled out all the preliminary paperwork.

I’ve been working in the Optical Calibration Lab in Building 5 with Mr. Brendan McAndrew doing actually pretty various tasks. I worked with LabVIEW programs trying to manipulate polarizers and detectors; I constructed covers to block out room light from various set ups (I call them doghouses); I collected data from detectors and graphed countless sets from them; I also learned troubleshooting skills with different set ups. I also got to assemble some of the parts of set ups, using tools and screws and bases, trying to get everything to fit together the right way, kind of like my dad’s old Steel Tec set I used to play with. When I wasn’t playing-I mean working- with equipment, Brendan was teaching me what an oscilloscope is, how the giant laser is powered, and how to describe a dual double wedge depolarizer without getting tongue-tied. It really felt like I was playing all summer. Programming is basically a video game, assembling LEDs and polarizers and cameras is basically like real-life legoes, and I can’t talk about building doghouses at NASA without laughing a little. I’m not saying I wasn’t working, or I wasn’t learning, what I’m saying is it was fun anyway.

The National Space Club Scholars Program puts the fun back into learning. One thing my mom always says when we’re talking about my future is “It doesn’t matter what you end up doing, as long as you love doing it.” Everyone here has such passion for the work they’re doing, it really inspires me to be a part of that. These summer internship opportunities are helping us get to our goal of doing something we love. The fact that we have fun working here shows that we have a passion, and the fact that we are here shows we’re lucky enough to have people passionate about helping us follow our passions.

So I’d like to thank everyone who followed whatever passion led them to helping me follow mine. So many people are the reason we’re here today. I personally want to thank Ms. Cockrell for guidance during this summer’s program; Ms. Bender for all her help for both of my internships; Brendan for giving me so much this summer in knowledge, experience, and honestly some of the best memories I have; and my mom for always listening to me rant about the exciting things that happen every day I’m here. I’d also like to thank everyone else’s parents, because the friends I’ve made this summer are among the best I’ve ever had. But on behalf of everyone, I’d like to express our extreme gratitude to the National Space Club, without which we would not be standing here today. Thank you for having your passion so that I have a chance to have mine.

2011 Scholars Program Participant: Markus Proctor

Good afternoon everyone, my name is Markus Proctor, I’m a rising senior at Charles Herbert Flowers High School and a round 2 summer intern at Goddard Space Flight Center. It is my distinct privilege to talk to you as a proud member of the National Space Club Scholars Program about who I am and my experience here at Goddard for 2 years.

Any good story always has a beginning, middle and end. My journey to my current path in life started with a basic idea that “I want to be famous, smart, well respected and of course… rich!”. As simple as it may seem you would be surprise how hard it is to achieve all 4 in one lifetime. I had to settle down my childhood enthusiasm and just stick to being smart. Being smart kid led to my interest in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). As a child with big dreams of changing the world, I started small with toy cars and Legos. I always had that nitch for building something and watching my creations actually work and from those feelings I knew that I will one day become an engineer.

Now to advance 8 years into the future at the age of 15, I was the “average” smart kid at any high school. I earned very good grades and a lot of people respected me for my attitude towards education and always trying to get ahead. However I reached a wall in life, I said to myself that there has to be a time where I actually get to use what I learn in school. Learning the Pythagorean Theorem, sine and cosine laws are nice and all but it’s not like I’m going to use that stuff when I go to the mall. I felt like I was ready for the working world. With basic level projects under my belt to put on my resume, a mentor of mine at NASA told me about the internships for high school so I applied and I was accepted. My acceptance felt more than just getting in by luck, it felt like I now have the chance to show the world what I can do.

My first day at Goddard started with an orientation filled in a room with a bunch of people I did not know. The National Space Club Scholars Program really does a good job in making sure to make friends with the other interns ESPECIALLY IF YOU DO NOT DRIVE. On my first day at my lab, everyone spoke Spanish; I seriously felt that I was in the wrong room. It turns out that the robotics boot camp (the program that accepted me) was an international engineering lab where students from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Ireland, and many other places work together to complete advance projects on robotics. The Spanish made my day a little uncomfortable but even on the English side they were speaking in some language only engineers could understand which made me feel even more lost. However I did not panic, I introduced myself to every single person (over 40 people) asked questions and finally took my place on a project with a very intuitive group of people.

My project is called Grover which is an autonomous robot that will assist Greenland scientists in studying the layers of the earth underneath the large ice sheets. This research procedure was originally done by mounting a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) on a snowmobile and riding the vehicle around for several hours of the day. The robotics boot camp is to build an autonomous robot that will carry the GPR for several months at a time. The project is fairly simple but the robot is rather large, the first robot was over 7ft tall and 5 ft wide. However this year the robot has been scaled down to 5ft tall and around 4ft wide. This was made possible by using rather expensive but more efficient solar panels. I stuck around from the beginning and hopefully the end of the project while learning the language of engineering.

The past 2 years were fun, I made connections, friends, but most importantly I made an impact. How? I was the only high school student in my lab. I always kept myself doing something even if my group was taking break on their project I would work on another. It’s that passion and drive that my mentor saw in me that made him say “Wow, that is one smart and motivated kid. I need him back next year.” Now to advance to my second year; I’m working with a whole new set of people but my priorities didn’t change; work hard and make an impact. From day one I told my mentor that I was ready to get to work. We now have completed our project and with the completion of the project a whole new chapter will open. A new project, a new beginning, another chance to show what I can do and to make an impact. Thank you!

You have been a wonderful audience but I could not conclude my speech without first thanking The National Space Club Scholars Program for financially supporting me for pursuing the opportunity of a lifetime, and Mrs. Cockrell for being an excellent program coordinator and giving me so many opportunities to meet people and talk during sessions like this. Last but not least a special thank you to my mentor Mike Comberiate for allowing me to work in his lab as a high school student despite the limited space this year.

2011 NSC Scholars

The 2011 NSC Scholars and their schools are listed below, and for those who have graduated, their college or university.

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