The 2025 North Carolina Space Symposium was held in Raleigh, NC, on April 11. This annual event showcases student research from across North Carolina and brings together students, academics, industry professionals, and others involved in space and NASA-related fields.
The day-long event featured speaker presentations, student poster presentations, and lightning talks. To conclude the day, students participated in a workshop on developing practical communication skills for the STEM workforce.
One of the keynote speeches addressed the topic of extraterrestrial materials and how they provide clues about life on Earth.
In a LinkedIn post, Dr. Rafael Loureiro, Astrobotany Lab Founder and an associate professor of botany and plant physiology at Winston-Salem State University, praised the North Carolina Space Grant as the biggest supporter of the university’s Astrobotany Lab.
The Astrobotany Lab promotes cutting-edge research, student training and mentorship, laboratory development, and future scientific discoveries in the Space Plant Biology lab, one of the few with a Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Crop Production Team.
For the first time in Winston-Salem State University’s history, a student-led research experiment from the Astrobotany Lab was launched aboard Blue Origin’s all-female mission.
This groundbreaking project, developed by the university’s researchers, explores how humans might grow food on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The experiment also included Inkspot tomato seedlings, two cultivars of sweet potatoes (thanks to the USDA), and Arabidopsis thaliana.
Loureiro commended the Astrobotany Lab students from the Department of Biological Sciences for their dedication and hard work, and he thanked their collaborators from the Brazilian Space Farming Network, noting that this was the network’s first space-flown experiment.
Loureiro expressed gratitude to Winston-Salem State University for its unwavering support of the students and recognized the North Carolina Space Grant as their biggest champion since the beginning.
He also thanked former NASA rocket scientist and entrepreneur Aisha Bowe and Jennifer Lopez, acknowledging that their friendship and recognition of this transformative experiment will inspire everyone who believes in their dreams.
In 2023, Lopez announced her role as a program specialist at NASA, working within the human space exploration mission through the Artemis Program.
She assists NASA in commercializing low Earth orbit, returning to the Moon, and laying the groundwork for human exploration of Mars.
Before joining NASA, Lopez worked for another high-profile agency in Washington, D.C., for over six years and spent nearly nine years at National Geographic. She serves as an advisory council member for the Johns Hopkins University Physics and Astronomy Department and is the founder and CEO of Odyssey Space.
On April 14, three students—Gabrielle Erwin, A’nya Buckner, and Sarah Lang—from Winston-Salem State University traveled to Texas to witness the launch of Blue Origin’s historic all-female space mission.
While they watched from the ground, their scientific research took place aboard the rocket. The experiment, led by WSSU’s Astrobotany students and researchers, investigates how crop plants respond to microgravity at the molecular level, advancing sustainable space agriculture and food security on Earth.
This research is part of an ongoing project at WSSU’s Astrobotany Lab, which aims to better understand how space conditions impact plant life and explore plant growth beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Gabrielle Erwin, a junior biology major, plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. focusing on regenerative medicine and plant physiology. She expressed excitement about returning the samples after the mission to continue her work.
A’nya Buckner, a senior, looks forward to applying the knowledge gained from her labs and lectures to real-world research and is thrilled to see the seedlings in space.
She was selected as one of the 2023-2024 Minority Serving Institutions STEM Bridge Scholars by the NC Space Grant. She aspires to become either an emergency room physician or an anesthesiologist.
Sarah Lang, a senior biology major, will soon begin her master’s in cell and molecular biology at the Florida Institute of Technology. For her, the launch represents the culmination of months of hard work.
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