GSFC Mentor Overview Padi Boyd Associate Director Astrophysics Science Division NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Goddard at a glance • NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is home to the naon's largest organizaon of sciensts, engineers and technologists who build spacecra, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe. • Just outside Washington, Goddard is home to Hubble operaons, the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, and many other space science missions in operaon, development, or archived. New kids on the block! • Our first year in NAC • Added somewhat late in the game (December 2014) • Couldn’t find someone to be lead mentor • Had to get our Office of Educaon onboard • Slammed by snow storms, inscrutable process requirements, difficulty recruiCng moCvated mentors • Ended up cobbling it together, giving it our best shot, learning as we go NAC GSFC 2015 Astrophysics Division • Lead mentor: P. Boyd Student Home Inst Mentor Project Junellie Gonzales UMCP Dwek, Staguhn, GISMO maps, Arendt galacCc center Ameer Blake Howard U Roberge Exoplanet CubeSAT planning Qiana Hunt* UAH Hewib Fermi pulsar wind, blazar Cee Gould UCBerkley Venters Fermi energec parCcle starburst galaxies *Awarded John Mather Scholarship, which pays the cost of travel of Goddard intern to aend conferences and present their research. The Mentors Johannes Staguhn Jack Hewib Aki Roberge Toni Venters Eli Dwek Rick Arendt The NAC interns Cee Junellie Qiana Ameer 2015 schedule • June 1st arrive GSFC, orientaon, group lunch • June 8th-12th Python boot camp • June 20th- Hubble Night at GSFC Visitor Ctr • June 25-26 DC/MD/VA Astrophysics Summer MeeCng • July 7th GSFC Science Jamboree • July 9th White House Tribal Youth Gathering • July 18-20th East Coast Cohort Visit • July 23rd- Hubble Day at Goddard • July 30th –intern poster session • Aug 6th-NAC student organized movie viewing • August 7th-last day of program Extra Added Bonuses • Roundtable chat with John Mather • NAC outreach at White House Tribal Youth Gathering • Science Jamboree • Hubble Day, including talks by Charlie Boldin, John Grunsfeld and John Mather • Lab tours---missions and instruments in dev • Poster session presenCng final projects to Center • Ice cream social • Pizza party with division director Joan Centrella • Q&A with recent postdocs and grad students • GRAD-MAP lunches • Inclusive Astronomy and WIA acCviCes What worked? • Students and projects! • Leveraging off nearby efforts: GRAD-MAP, NPP, local events (tribal summit, astrophysics summer meeng) • Weekly meengs • Interns making connecCons with each other, graduate students, other interns Some of our challenges • NASA’s exisCng internship process and structure is required, different than the NAC process, and slowed down geng offers out. Students had to apply to two different systems (NASA and NAC). • ExisCng schedule for interns is already full of acCviCes and enrichment ---made it tough to add enough NAC- only acCviCes. NAC students did a great job picking up the slack here---thank you! • Research topics and mentors were very diverse ---hard for mentors to really back each other up. • In spite of these challenges ---students and mentors all had a very posiCve and rewarding experience. Looking toward future • Want to conCnue and expand the program! • Mentors will hold an aer-acCon review, looking for areas to improve. • We will collect some addiConal feedback from the students. • We will reach out to other science divisions and engineering to see if addiConal NAC cohorts can be created across Goddard. • Look for ways to simplify the applicaton process. .