July 17, 2023
Two aerospace engineering Ph.D. students have been selected to receive 2023 NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) awards. Students selected for these fellowships receive funding for their research, usually for multiple years, as well as full tuition. NASA selects highly qualified recipients who have demonstrated the capability of creating innovative new space technologies for the nation’s science, exploration and economic future. Research is conducted on campus and at NASA centers with the student’s faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator.
Learn more about each of this year’s recipients who answered some questions for us about their work and plans for the future.
Jacob Levy
Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. Student
Faculty Advisor: David Fridovich-Keil
Tell us about your research.
NASA seeks to enhance autonomous mobility with robots that learn from past experiences to adapt to uncertain and hazardous environments. In alignment with NASA’s objectives, I am currently focused on developing reinforcement learning techniques which will enable efficient training of robotic systems operating in such environments by exploiting known structures in approximate dynamics models. My goal is to create algorithms that can be seamlessly applied to different types of mobility platforms in situations where only limited knowledge of physical phenomena is available.
What do you enjoy about your research?
One of my favorite aspects of my research is implementation and testing on hardware. Transitioning from simulation to hardware is sometimes challenging, but it is extremely satisfying seeing your algorithm working in real time, in the real world.
What are your plans after receiving your Ph.D.?
After graduation, I want to continue research in robotics as a researcher within government or industry.
Zee McLaughlin
Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. Student
Faculty Advisor: Brandon Jones
Tell us about your research.
I am researching nonlinear, polynomial-based filtering methods to aid in orbit determination, navigation, and long-term orbital rendezvous in cislunar space. Current state-of-the-art state estimation algorithms have trouble maintaining accurate solutions when objects in some orbital regimes pass nearest to the moon, so my research seeks to offer an alternative algorithm to estimate these objects’ states more consistently. This work is motivated primarily by NASA’s Artemis program, which will see placement of the lunar Gateway and other assets in Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHOs) around the L1 Lagrange point in the Earth-Moon system. Enabling the safety of these assets, and especially of the people aboard the Gateway, by providing accurate and consistent estimates of where they are and where they’re going, is critical to ensure the success of new cislunar space exploration efforts.
What do you enjoy about your research?
The most exciting part of my research is feeling like I may be able to help people answer important scientific questions. Aerospace is a field with incredible potential to help us answer questions about why we’re here and where we came from – I love my research because it is a way to fundamentally expand what is possible for people to ask and answer with science missions and space exploration.
What are your plans after receiving your Ph.D.?
After I graduate, I hope to work for an organization with a strong focus on science and space exploration. I would love to end up at NASA or a similar organization that maintains a strong focus on using engineering as a platform to achieve new and exciting scientific goals for everyone’s gain.
