West Virginia Student to Participate in Internship at Goddard Space Flight Center

Becky McCauley, a student from Westover, is spending this summer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., as a participant in the prestigious NASA Student Internship Program (SIP).

SIP, a research-intensive program that allows students to explore various career opportunities within NASA, commissions students to spend their workday in a Goddard or Wallops Flight Facility laboratory or headquarters office conducting research for various projects and missions.

By the end of the summer, each student should complete close to 400 hours of research on a project related to NASA's goals and deliver a poster presentation to share the results of their research with NASA personnel and fellow interns.

"The part of my future experience in the internship program that interests me the most is that I will be working in Mars research," said McCauley. "I am fixed on the Red Planet and am excited to contribute to the NASA mission to explore Mars."

Each SIP student is assigned a NASA scientist or engineer as a mentor and assists the mentor with his or her current project. The SIP participants help their mentors conduct research and use data for the projects and, in turn, the mentors guide the students and help them learn as much as possible from their experience at NASA Goddard.

For example, in the summer of 2005, several SIP students built miniature engines for unmanned underwater vehicles. The 10-week program runs from June 5 through Aug. 11.

"This is a wonderful experience for a student," said Dr. Vigdor Teplitz, chief of higher education for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "NASA's space program is just about the greatest show on Earth if you are a technical person and having these young eager people with fresh points-of-view and questions is good for NASA. It makes a productive summer for all."

This year, SIP brings together 46 students from around the country, including Puerto Rico, who are pursuing degrees in science, engineering, mathematics, computer science or another field of interest to the aerospace industry.

For more info about SIP visit http://university.gsfc.nasa.gov/programs/sip.jsp.

The Path to Prosperity: A Policy of Investment

The May 2007 policy brief, Policy Matters, by the American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU), is titled "The Path to Prosperity: A Policy of Investment," and speaks to the need for an invigorated federal-state investment in public higher education as a key strategy in gaining a competitive advantage for regional economies.

View the policy briefing in PDF or in HTML format.