Two PhD students earn major NASA fellowships
Two aerospace graduate students are being recognized with 2025 ´Ú±ð±ô±ô´Ç·É²õ³ó¾±±è²õ.Ìý
PhD students Tommy Clark and Joe Hesse-Withbroe are recipients of the program, which sponsors graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nation’s science, exploration and economic future.
PhD honorees receive an annual stipend for up to four years to conduct research and are also matched with a NASA expert, who serves as a research collaborator. Fellows also have the opportunity to conduct visiting technologist experiences in-person at NASA Centers.
Smead Aerospace students have had strong representation in the NSTGRO program, with 16 winners over the past five years.
Tommy Clark
2nd Year PhD Student
Advisor: Dan Scheeres
Lab:
I am using artificial intelligence to generate databases of trajectories in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP). Specifically, I am using neural networks to store continuous families of periodic orbits which can generate entire trajectories from a single parameter. In the future, we hope to transition this to Quasi-Periodic Orbits (QPOs) to allow for easier access to these orbits in mission design and for onboard autonomy.
Clark is a 2025 awardee of both the NSTGRO and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Federal rules allow honorees to receive only one. He has chosen the NSTGRO.
Joe Hesse-Withbroe
3rd Year PhD Student
Advisor: Katya Arquilla
Lab: Bioastronautics Laboratory
My research focuses on alternative, mass-efficient radiation shielding strategies for astronauts participating in long-duration exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit. Astronauts in space are exposed to high energy solar and galactic radiation that is impossible to block using traditional passive shielding methods. Unmitigated, this radiation poses a significant threat to astronauts, causing cataracts, heart and kidney disease, Parkinson's disease, and cancer. My work explores the feasibility of an alternative shielding concept wherein large superconducting electromagnets are used to deflect this radiation. These magnetic shields can block a greater amount of solar and galactic radiation with a significantly lower total shield mass than an equivalent passive shield. I aim to develop modeling techniques to enable the rapid estimation of the mass and performance of magnetic shields, which enables characterization of the design trade space of magnetic shields and the identification of optimal shielding solutions for lunar and martian exploration missions.