The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, one of the nation’s leading engineering, science, and technology universities, has announced that 28 students were selected by the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium for scholarship and research funding from NASA.
Tom Durkin, deputy director of the consortium, said about 96% of funded students go on to careers in various aspects of science, technology, engineering, and math.
The South Dakota Space Grant Consortium is the link between NASA and one of the many programs established by Congress in 1991 in support of NASA’s Office of Education to maintain the nation’s leadership in aeronautics and space exploration.
According to South Dakota Mines, Dalton Lund, a graduate student in electrical engineering, is interning with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center assisting with the development of a Pulsed Fission-Fusion (PuFF) propulsion system that has the potential to be used to explore deep space including crewed missions to Mars and beyond.
Kole Pickner, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, is interning with NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center working on a magnetic coupling system for cryogenic fluid transfer. Pickner also works part-time in Mines’ physics department in Dr. David Martinez’s research group. He helps design/build calibration and testing equipment for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) that will be constructed at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The calibration research is funded by the DUNE project and the Department of Energy.
A third student, Mathew Clutter, a Mines computer science major, is on an internship assisting with a high-altitude ballooning project offered by Montana Space Grant Consortium.
Mines students are studying a wide range of aerospace and NASA-related research topics. Each of these three graduate students received $5,000 research stipends:
Michael Cyrier, a paleontology graduate student, is researching rare microbial life, known as extremophiles, that live deep inside Black Hills caves. The research may lend insight to life on other planets.
Kaytie Barkley, a mechanical engineering graduate student, is studying the joining of lightweight composite materials that could be components of future spacecraft.
James Gormley, a mechanical engineering graduate student, is working on experimental designs for techniques that can be used to analyze the lunar surface and lunar ice caps.
Twenty-two other Mines students received NASA scholarship funds from the SDSGC to continue their studies.
The South Dakota Space Grant Consortium has announced the SD Space Grant Consortium Student Internship/Fellowship Stipend Program for 2021. Applications are now open for summer and fall 2021 and Spring 2022.
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