Students Elizabeth O’Nan, Cotler Burress and Rose Easterday of A-B Tech have been selected to travel to NASA’s Langley Research Center, and student Nicholas Long to the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, to participate in the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars project (NCAS).
They were selected as four of 348 community college students from across the United States. to be part of NCAS. O’Nan and Easterday are the first women chosen from A-B Tech. So far, 10 A-B Tech students have participated in the program.
“I'm looking forward to meeting the NASA engineers, the on-site event, and seeing all of the testing facilities and new engineering concepts,” said O’Nan, an Associate in Science student. After graduation, she would like to continue to work in engineering.
The five-week scholars' program culminates with a four-day on-site event at Langley or Glenn Research Centers and offers students the opportunity to interact with NASA engineers and others as they learn more about careers in science and engineering. While at NASA, students form teams and establish fictional companies interested in Mars exploration. Each team is responsible for developing and testing a prototype rover, forming a company infrastructure, managing a budget, and developing communications and outreach.
The on-site experience at NASA includes a tour of facilities and briefings by NASA subject matter experts. “I've always been amazed by what NASA is working on and has accomplished. I applied so I could learn more about this organization and get a glimpse of what day to day life is like for employees of this organization,” said Long.
NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars is a project funded in part by the Minority University Research and Education Program, or MUREP, which is committed to the recruitment of underrepresented and underserved students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to sustain a diverse workforce. “I’ve been interested in cosmology and the physics of the world since I was in elementary school, and NASA is a big dream,” Easterday said.
With this project, NASA continues the agency’s tradition of investing in the nation’s educational programs. It is directly tied to the agency's major education goal of attracting and retaining students in STEM disciplines critical to NASA’s future missions, which include missions to Mars and beyond.
“NCAS not only inspires community college students to advance in STEM fields, but it also opens doors for future careers at NASA. NCAS has a legacy of alumni moving from NASA internships to and ultimately entering the NASA workforce. It is rewarding to see the progression of a student from NCAS participant to NASA colleague.” Tania B. Davis, Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Manager.
