Poster Session Gives NASA Interns A Chance to Show Their Work

On Thursday Aug. 16, NASA Ames held a poster session representing interns from the Foothill / De Anza internship program and the Summer Science Event. More than 70 Foothill / De Anza interns came representing their work for the year. Lashunda Leggett, an administrative assistant intern in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) division said that she applied because “I thought it would be a really good experience for me. I didn’t think I would get it!”

The Summer Science Day interns worked in aeronautics systems, earth science, life science, space science, information technology, and exploration systems. Nicole Simons from the University of Oklahoma worked on a project that integrated data from NASA missions into an application that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could use. They used NASA data to create a program that visually shows the sea surface height. The program will go onto the NOAA website. The five students worked for 10 weeks to create the program, using data from 4 NASA sites in 3 different formats. “We worked hard – very very hard,” said Simons.

“The average age of an employee at NASA is over 50. You folks are the ones who are going to do this job. You are the future. I am confident some of you are going to walk on the moon, or even Mars,” said Pete Worden, Ames Center Director.