Background

The purpose of the NASA’s Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP) is three-fold:

1. To extend and strengthen NASA’s commitment to educational excellence and university research, highlighting the critical need to increase the Nation’s undergraduate and graduate science, engineering, mathematics, and technology skill base.
2. To build a national program bridge - from existing NASA K-12 Education Program activities to NASA Higher Education Program options - that encourages and facilitates student interest in future professional opportunities with NASA and its partner organizations. Such opportunities might include NASA career employment, temporary assignment, undergraduate and graduate co-op appointment, Space Grant scholarships and fellowships, or contractor positions.
3. To attract undergraduate students from the widest array of backgrounds, who are fully representative of America’s racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity and to provide them with hands-on, challenging research experiences that stimulate continued student interest in the fields/disciplines aligned with NASA’s research and development mission.

Solution

NASA's Undergraduate Student Research Program managed by USRA, offers undergraduates across the United States mentored internship experiences at NASA Centers and research facilities. The program provides hand-on technical and research experiences with outstanding NASA mentors. Most students work on practical problems that will see real applications in aerospace or on future NASA missions.

USRP offers engineering internships, science internships, and mathematics internship experiences that give students the ultimate STEM workforce preparatory experience. A USRP internship will be the first step toward a career at NASA, or within the science and engineering (STEM) workforce. USRP internship opportunities are offered year round in the fall, summer and spring.

Results

Each year, The NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program places over 300 undergraduate students from across the U.S. into mentored internship experiences at NASA Centers and research support facilities. Below is just a small sample of the experience that USRP students have gained through their internships.

Emily Kollin, Student

Ms. Kollin is a sophomore in aeronautical engineering at The Ohio State University and is currently working through the Undergraduate Student Research Program on two projects in support of NASA’s forthcoming Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). For the first project, Ms. Kollin is developing a storyboard visualizing the phases of Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) as the CEV returns to Earth from the Moon. A second, related project is focusing on using software to create mission plans which compare three different re-entry trajectories as the CEV returns to Earth and estimates the reliability of navigational measurements for each.

Johnathan Dollison, Student

Mr. Dollison is a junior at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and is pursuing a double major in computer and electrical engineering. Through the Undergraduate Student Research Program, Mr. Dollison is conducting research in the area of electromagnetic interference with a focus on how to control electrical noise across radio spectrum frequencies. His research in this area is looking to identify the level of emissions given off by various systems as well as the susceptibility of each system to external radiation interference.