On Thursday, August 3, 2023 NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) hosted the final presentations from the Summer 2023 DEVELOP class – colloquially referred to as ‘Developers’ – in a joint event that also served to celebrate the program’s 20th anniversary at ARC.
DEVELOP (previously known as the Digital Earth Virtual Environment and Learning Outreach Program) is a 10-week internship conducted three times per year, during which time participants create interdisciplinary research projects applying Earth observation data to real-world problems across nine thematic arenas: Agriculture, Climate, Disasters, Ecological Conservation, Energy, Health & Air Quality, Urban Development, Water Resources, and Wildland Fires. The two groups from the summer 2023 DEVELOP class at Ames researched topics within Water Resources and Wildland Fires.
The first of these projects, titled ‘South Slough Water Resources,’ focused on the use of remote sensing to monitor changes in water quality and identify stressors in the eelgrass of the Coos estuary. It was presented by Maya Hall, Gabriel Halaweh, Sean McCollum, and Zoë Siman-tov. In ‘Marin County Wildland Fire II,’ the day’s second presentation, the team of Developers focused on fire suppression modeling in order to better inform fire prevention and suppression decisions. The presenters on this team were Harrison Raine, Anai Tene, Katherine Scott, Nikitha Shivakumar, and Tiffany Mar.
20th Anniversary Celebration
Presentations like the ones witnessed in this room have been going on for two full decades. DEVELOP was founded in 1998 at the NASA Langley Research Center, and came to ARC in 2003 thanks to the efforts of Cindy Schmidt and Jay Skiles. To kick off the 20th anniversary celebration of the Ames branch of the program, Schmidt and Skiles regaled the room with stories about the origins of DEVELOP: the decision to initiate a branch of the internship at ARC, the first students to come through the program, and a few of the hurdles the team has overcome in the years since.
The anniversary celebration also included an alumni panel, comprised of panelists spanning DEVELOP classes from the inaugural 2003 class through 2020. Many alumni were able to attend in person: Amy Kennedy, Andrew Nguyen, Amber Wittner, Casey Hiatt, and Nirav Patel, and a few more joined the panel online: Chippie Kislik, Krista West, and Victoria Ly.
The panelists reflected on the impact DEVELOP has had in the years since their respective closeouts, with a few common threads emerging. In the academic tract, several alumni explained how their experience in DEVELOP shaped their graduate school decisions. Beyond academics, the knowledge gained in the program was also put to use in industry – alumni came away with the ability to apply NASA tools and data sets into jobs at other organizations, and beyond.
Sometimes to lead you need to put other people in front of you.
Amber Whittner
DEVELOP class of 2006
The universal takeaway from the alumni was the teamwork aspect of DEVELOP. “Sometimes to lead you need to put other people in front of you,” said Amber Whittner, (DEVELOP class of 2006, current GIS Coordinator and Geospatial Systems Architect at USGS) in a discussion on learning to work within a team when everyone is intelligent and ambitious. Many other alumni echoed this sentiment, sharing story after story of how instrumental it was to learn to work with other scientists both in the field and outside of it. Numerous panelists mentioned that the relationships formed in DEVELOP have stayed with them in their personal lives; co-Developers in weddings, at baby showers, and maintaining decades-long friendships.
Speaking directly to the graduating DEVELOP class, the alumni urged the students to go for their passions instead of the safe jobs. “Take risks! Not taking risks is a risk in of itself,” encouraged Casey Hiatt (class of 2003, current Information Systems and Technology Manager at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District).
Take risks! Not taking risks is a risk in of itself.
Casey Hiatt
DEVELOP class of 2003
The program has one week left, during which time the Developers will present their findings again – this time to the partners they worked with throughout their research.
For more information the DEVELOP Capacity Building Program, to partner with DEVELOP or to apply, visit: https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/what-we-do/capacity-building/develop
