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The Path to Success

Season 1Episode 208Aug 13, 2021

NASA interns from around the country detail the various student programs at the agency that helped them to land their internship opportunity. HWHAP Episode 208.

The Path to Success

The Path to Success

If you’re fascinated by the idea of humans traveling through space and curious about how that all works, you’ve come to the right place.

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center from Houston, Texas, home for NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control Center. Listen to the brightest minds of America’s space agency – astronauts, engineers, scientists and program leaders – discuss exciting topics in engineering, science and technology, sharing their personal stories and expertise on every aspect of human spaceflight. Learn more about how the work being done will help send humans forward to the Moon and on to Mars in the Artemis program.

On Episode 208, NASA interns from around the country detail the various student programs at the agency that helped them to land their internship opportunity. This episode was recorded on June 16, 2021.

Check out our collection of intern podcasts for National Intern Day!

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Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast! Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 208, “The Path to Success.” I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. On this show we bring in the experts, sometimes we bring in folks who will become the experts. All right, so we’ve been talking about internships quite a bit recently. Last time we talked about how to be a successful once you landed your internship, how to stand out to maximize your chance of getting a full-time opportunity. This time, we’re taking a step back to talk about specifically what you should be doing in school, and what you should be signing up for out of school to land the intern gig. This episode should be revealing of several different student programs that help these interns end up at NASA. Joining me is Pedro Salazar Garcia, who joins us from Ames Research Center and got his start in a NASA community college program called NCAS (National Community College Aerospace Scholars) before he started. Jeff Severino joins from Glenn Research Center in Ohio, and first started under the Space Grant Project, also had a couple of internships. And Kaixin Cui joins us from right here at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and took part in NASA’s BIG (Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing) Idea Challenge and Space Life Sciences Training Program at Ames Research Center. Yes, so if you’re like me you’ve never even heard of a lot of these opportunities. But they’re proven ways to get to NASA. Just ask these three. Let’s get right into it. Enjoy.

[ Music]

Host: Pedro, Jeff, and Kai, thank you all for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today from all different parts of the nation. We have some folks coming from California, let’s see, from the Ohio centers, here in the Houston, Houston Johnson Space Center. So, this will be a great conversation. Today’s topic is all about what got you to where you are right now at NASA, and there’s a lot of different ways to get here, a lot of different student programs to help you land that full-time position. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I want to understand, though, let’s, we’ve talked about the different locations, right, where you guys are coming from, all over, but you also have different backgrounds. I want to get a better sense of that. Pedro, we’ll start with you. Tell us a little bit more about yourself, your major, your school, and some of the things that you were a part of before, before coming to NASA.

Pedro Salazar: Yes, first of all, thank you for having us here. And then, I’m Pedro Salazar. I moved from Mexico back in 2013 to Iowa. I’m currently studying aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, and I’m also a currently a NASA Ames Research Center intern.

Host: Very cool. And so, tell me about your, tell me about what got you to go into the major that you did. So, you said you moved from — was it Mexico and you went to Iowa? So, tell me about that transition and then your, what, like what drove you to enter into an engineering field?

Pedro Salazar: OK, so yeah, as I told you before, I moved to Mexico to the U.S. back in 2013. I arrived here without knowing any English.

Host: Hmm.

Pedro Salazar: So, I, the business place where everything is different, where I wasn’t able to understand the language, and I was missing my family. But I got to finish high school in 2015. I took, I got [inaudible] money and started in Des Moines Area Community College in 2016. And then this time, I built solar panel from scratch, and I’m participating in [inaudible]; this got me interested in an engineering degree.

Host: Very cool. Well, that, yeah, that will certainly help to inspire you to do that, actually getting your hands on and dirty with some, with some actual tech. So that certainly, probably served for you, at least, as a major inspiration for saying, hey, that’s what I want to do. I want to get my hands-on stuff. And that’s what I want to do with my career.

Pedro Salazar: Yes, that’s correct.

Host: Very good. All right, so Jeff, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jeff Severino: Hi, I am Jeff Severino, and I’m originally from the Bronx, New York. And I eventually went to school in Hartford, Connecticut at the University of Hartford. And initially what kind of drove me there was kind of a passion for music, and I wasn’t really sure as to what I was going to do with that. So, I ended up taking a physics course and told the physics teacher, hey, I’m thinking about audio engineering or something along those lines. And he said something so interesting that kind of changed my perspective when he said, you know, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers help make the devices that audio engineers use. And I took a step back and I wondered which school would probably have some theoretical emphasis, moreso on because audio and sound. So, whereas led me to the University of Hartford’s acoustic program. And there we — I was able to get a concentration in acoustics and computation with a major in mechanical engineering and a minor in mathematics. And there I was able to moreso learn the theory of sound and vibration, and apply it to the world around us, which ended up being way more ways than just the musical environment.

Host: [Laughs] So what, let me see, I mean, your music, music was really the inspiration for you choosing to go into something a little bit more technical. But was there something maybe about the technical field that made you passionate about it? Right, so it wasn’t always music driving your passion for something technical —

Jeff Severino: Right.

Host: — you know, maybe you found something like, wow, there’s this really interesting phenomenon that’s happening with acoustics, and I want to explore that.

Jeff Severino: Yes, and see, actually, because I thought I had an idea of what acoustics was, but once I got to University of Hartford and into the program eventually, I realized that there is more application than just musical physics. And there was a big, I would say a big aspect of the acoustics field is architectural acoustics, and it’s a very good way to kind of ease in the theoretical aspects that are associated. But then I realized, I just started venturing out looking for other applications, and noise was something that people studied, and being from New York City, I realized like hey, I didn’t realize how noisy it was until I left. [laughter] And so, what ended up happening I just started, I was trying to do more research than acoustical consulting. And it was just moreso because I was more interested in the research and development side of things, and so there was more of the industry. And what I ended up finding was NASA Space Grant Consortium, and essentially, I found a professor, out of the kindness of his heart let me be his research assistant, and from there I found another experience that I was able to work in the field of aeroacoustics, and that was, I guess the sparkle in my eye, you could say.

Host: Hmm.

Jeff Severino: Because I realized that, you know, it’s important to have good performance and good fuel emissions, but it’s also important to make sure that people on the ground are also safe and sound as well. And so that really kind of drove me to keep trying to work in the, that field, especially in the acoustics branch at NASA.

Host: Very cool. Yeah, and we’re going to explore that a little bit, what you’ve been doing at NASA, for sure, as we keep going through this; so, it’s great to have you, Jeff. Kai, you are also an engineer. We’ve got a lot of engineers on the call today. Tell us about yourself.

Kai Cui: Yeah, so hi, thank you so much for inviting me. I’m really excited to be here today. As you said, my name is Kai. I graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, this past May with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. And it actually all started during my senior year of high school. I attended a Girls’ Explore Engineering Day at CU Boulder.

Host: Hmm.

Kai Cui: And while touring it, I had a chance to see the bioastronautics lab, and I spoke with a lot of the professors and graduate students of the lab. And it was actually my first introduction to anything related to human spaceflight. And it sparked a pretty big interest for me. And I just decided to study mechanical engineering at CU, so I could pursue some more research projects. And this led to an internship at Ames through the Space Life Sciences Training Program. And then I also participated in the BIG Idea Challenge and interned at Langley [Research Center]and joined the Pathways program at JSC. And all of these opportunities were a tieback to my initial interest in human spaceflight work.

Host: Yeah, yeah. it sounds like mechanical engineering the way, the way you kind of described it was mechanical engineering was like a means to an end. It was a way to end up in the human space something, human spaceflight or spaceflight-related. But you know, there are a lot of different ways, avenues that you can take to, to work at NASA. Why, why did you end up choosing mechanical engineering over other engineering disciplines?

Kai Cui: Yeah. I really liked how the mechanical engineering program offered a lot of flexibility in terms of what projects I wanted to work on. And I knew I had this interest in human spaceflight, so I focused all of my projects that I did throughout college on sort of human spaceflight stuff. So, during first semester we had a freshman engineering project class, and I actually contacted someone at JSC to see if I could work on a project with them. And it worked out. And that was my first experience doing something hands on. So, I really appreciated the flexibility the department offered me, and sort of the opportunities it opened up.

Host: Yeah, I hear that a lot from mechanical engineers. That’s actually, my brother, too, my brother ended up becoming a mechanical engineer because of that same reason: he loved engineering, but he’s like, where do I want, you know, where do I want to put my talents, and mechanical engineering just has a lot of different, it’s a very broad spectrum that you can enter into. And to meet your ultimate goal that it provided you, it sounded like, even more paths to get to NASA, all of these different broad areas that you could explore within mechanical engineering, you’ve just got to find your niche.

Kai Cui: Yeah. Mhmm.

Host: Exactly. OK, so let’s go through. And I think what’s cool about this, this topic, is each of you took different NASA programs or NASA grants, even, to end up working for NASA. So, before you got your internship, this is important, there are other programs that you can explore before actually landing that internship. And that actually might help you get the internship if that’s one of your ultimate goals. So, Kai, I’ll start with you because what you just described was you said you went to multiple different NASA centers. You went to Ames, you went to Langley, you went to Johnson Space Center. So, you had a lot of different experiences prior to landing the, well it seems like you were part of multiple different internships but, tell us about the programs and starting with when you discovered them?

Kai Cui: Yeah, I can go through a few of the programs. So, the first one that I actually did was called the Space Life Sciences Training Program. It’s also known as SLSTP. And that was at Ames. And I heard about this through a graduate student who was working at the bioastronautics lab that I was talking about previously. And through that like internship program I had a chance to work on a lot of like individual and group projects related to space biology. I got a chance to work on the BioSentinel Mission, which is supposed to study the impact of deep space radiation on living organisms. And then during my third year at CU I actually participated in the BIG Idea Challenge with a team of other university students. And this actually led to a summer internship at Langley. So, I can talk a little bit more about the BIG Idea Challenge, since that was the program that I did.

Host: Yeah, go into it.

Kai Cui: Yeah. So, I actually, originally joined a team of students and advisors from my university, I think Harvard, Cornell, and the University of Hawaii, and we all banded together to participate in this BIG Idea Challenge. And it was in 2019. We had to create a design and the installation and operation of a Martian greenhouse to support a crew of four members on a 600-day surface mission. And the challenges change every year, so ours was specifically for the Martian greenhouse. And then, after we wrote our first concept of operations, we were invited to present this to judges at Langley during the BIG Idea forum. And we actually won the Most Innovative Concept Award, and then I was selected for a summer internship at Langley through this challenge. And four other students from other teams were also selected, so we ended up spending the summer further developing our ideas for a Mars greenhouse and writing a more detailed concept of operations. So yeah, that was my experience with the BIG Idea Challenge.

Host: Very, very cool. And I’m going to circle back to you, Kai, to ask about your internship experiences, because you had multiple. You had the Langley experience, now you’re at Johnson. So, you definitely have a pretty broad perspective on all there is to offer at NASA. I’m going to go to Jeff, though, because Jeff, you have an interesting, you have an interesting entrance in because you took, so you had space grants, you had several internships, you’re also Pathways, I believe. So, tell me about, tell me about how you heard about all these opportunities, and then what they are.

Jeff Severino: Right. I guess it all really started with me trying to find an extracurricular in research or, you know, I wasn’t having too much luck with the consulting internships I had been applying to. So, I kind of started cold-calling companies. And what I ended up doing was there was new professor in my mechanical engineering department that year, and so I just introduced myself, after, you know, looking at what he studied. And I noticed he had a focus on plasma. Particularly, I said, hey, are you looking for a research student? Came to find out he actually was looking for a research assistant. And this research program was through NASA’s Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. And the Space Grant Consortium is kind of like a network of universities throughout the country, like through all 50 states. And essentially, they will be kind of a head, you know, head university or a head organization, more likely university, and from there they will disperse grants, grant money through other universities in that state. So, I kind of got lucky in the sense that she was looking for, she was applying for a space grant and I ended up to be asking right before the deadline was due. So I put together my application, which, it wasn’t like, it wasn’t as easy as, you know, a bubble in questionnaire, but it was a little bit more than just a resume, and you kind of want to know your line in that sense for the research kind of background stuff. And that ended up being a really cool research project. My research project was essentially making a plasma-assisted oxygen source. The idea is that Martian atmosphere is really 98% CO2, I’m not a space guy, so forgive me if I have any wrong; but essentially plasma could be used to turn that carbon dioxide into oxygen. But the concepts, and there has been no prototype in lab that the professor had done before, so my job was kind of to design and test an oxygen source bridge. So even though it was cool, it wasn’t really what I had in mind. I wanted to do something more in acoustics. I ended up finding myself taking sound measurements of the plasma device. But it’s not necessarily the focus of the research. But I ended up getting a reference to another professor from Dr. Kamau Wright to Ivana Milanovich where she had a faculty fellowship for, I believe five summers at NASA Glenn [Research Center]. And when her time this, she essentially split the time between two branches, the inlets and nozzles branch and the acoustics branch. And she had done a lot of acoustic testing in the Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory, or “The Dome”, as we call it at NASA Glenn. And she had taken some data back with her to the University of Hartford, and she wanted to continue doing further simulation analysis. And so, I ended up getting to work with her on a separate grant, where we looked at the computational aeroacoustics of dual stream nozzles, and there we got to kind of look at various noise sources that can exist along the nozzle using simulations. And just the really cool part about that is that we were using data that was actually taken at a NASA center. So for me, that was kind of like a big motivator, because even though I wasn’t — you know, I’m all the way in Connecticut and there’s a center in Cleveland, that was about like 500 miles, 600 miles away, I’m still getting to work with this data and I’m still getting to make an impact in my own way as a student. And that kind of propelled me to keep looking into more of the research that NASA does in that, in that field, and I realized, wow, in NASA, there’s, the second A is in aeronautics for a reason, there’s so much aviation research. And I didn’t realize that, you know, even though space is amazing and also a research endeavor, aeronautics is really kind of what put NASA in a particular situation that equipped them to tackle spaceflight in such a way. So, with that being said, I ended up applying to that branch, the acoustics branch that Dr. Milanovich had gotten her faculty fellowship. And after applying to 15 different positions, I was able to land that one as an acoustic observer, design, fabricate and test. So basically, what I would do is I would 3D-print acoustic samples and test the acoustic — absorptive behavior. And then that kind of led me down so many rabbit holes, but I ended up interning again, but because you have to be a student while you’re an intern, it’s kind of a tough if you don’t get a full-time gig after you graduate. You’ve kind of got to either wait for a new opportunity, and that was a big reason why I looked for entering graduate school. So, when I went to graduate school, I ended up applying for Pathways program ten times. I applied as an undergrad —

Host: Wow.

Jeff Severino: — but I wasn’t lucky. And one time I did, I did an interview through the acoustics branch but because of my timing I wasn’t actually eligible for the position. It’s been a long bit of a heartbreak but, you know, perseverance is really what you need, and patience to keep going and keep trying. And so eventually I was able to get another interview and eventually get even more experience that led me to be more equipped. So, I ended up being, and now I’m currently a masters student at the University of Toledo under Dr. (Ray) Hixon. And I work in the Computational Aeroacoustics Research Lab, where we essentially do more of the kind of simulation work I was discussing earlier, except we do a lot of under the hood kind of things, so to speak. So, an undergrad I was moreso using these codes, and now I’m getting to make them. And it’s really exciting because I would have never thought that from being an audio, wanting to be an audio engineer, I would have never thought I would be here from that, from that perspective.

Host: Well, it sounds like it was a ton of hard work, and on top of the hard work, despite rejection, that, that persistence to just keep applying because it was something that you were very passionate about, that’s really what got you to end up doing something that’s interested you, so much that “no” was not an option.

Jeff Severino: Right, exactly. And, you know, to anyone who is listening, and I would say, I’m sure the people on this panel feel the same way, you know, if it doesn’t work once, you try and try again. And eventually if you’re persistent enough, you will get your opportunity.

Host: Very cool. Pedro, I want to go to you because you discovered, you had gotten through NASA through another program. So, we talked about a couple different programs that are at NASA and all of these different internship experiences, grants. You did one that was specifically for community college. So, tell me about how you heard about it, and then your experiences with this, this program?

Pedro Salazar: Well, everything was starting in 2019 when Dr. Woods, one of my professors at my community college, brought a NASA Community Aerospace Scholars flyer to our physics class, and encouraged everyone to apply. At first I was hesitant, because NASA is kind of the main dream of almost every engineer. But I decided to apply, and I was selected to obtain a three-day inside experience at one of the community colleges in Oklahoma. So, we get there, and we went to work on a team of people that we don’t know. And so yes, [inaudible] I’m participating in the competition. So, I asked to participate in the Aerospace Academy, which is another program, and they just helped to create a preliminary design review, and a NASA proposal. So, both of these experiences were amazing because I got to meet people from NASA, from other states. And then I learned about the many opportunities that NASA offers to students.

Host: Very good. So, so what made you want to keep going then? You had this experience, you had this experience with the community college program. What made you want to keep going and say, I want to keep working with NASA. I want to keep meeting cool people, and I want to be a NASA intern?

Pedro Salazar: So actually, I meet the director of the NCAS, and she was very chill and was talking to us about the many opportunities that NASA has. So after coming to NCAS, and having known this from other scholars, it was kind of the, the style for going to NASA; because like one, when one person believes in you, so that way you just keep going and you keep trying.

Host: Very good. And so, you did not just do one internship, correct, you did multiple internships? What made you keep coming back, and what were some of those things that you were doing each time that you came for a new NASA internship?

Pedro Salazar: OK, the first internship was going to be, you know, in California, but due to COVID-19 they moved to teleworking. So, me and my team created a website to help connect partners to clients during the pandemic. So, we collaborated with two organizations and helped deliver almost 300 boxes of produce using 22 airplanes to [inaudible], California. And during the fall we delivered some more produce boxes to New Mexico. So, kind of the nonprofit side of NASA trying to help people so that, that’s why I decided to keep coming back.

Host: Very cool. Kai, you had a couple of different experiences as an intern, Langley and at the Johnson Space Center. And they’re different programs, right, so you had an internship program at one, now there’s this other thing called Pathways. Can you describe your experiences at each of those centers?

Kai Cui: Yeah, yeah. So, I guess at Langley, I’ve talked a little bit about what I did there.

Host: Mmm.

Kai Cui: We were just sort of developing this Martian greenhouse idea. And then at Johnson Space Center I started in the Pathways program. And the program is really great because you can rotate in different branches and just see a lot of the center, and sort of experience a lot of different engineering projects. So, I did two tours while I was at Johnson, and one of them was with the Environmental Systems branch in the Flight Operations Directorate. And I got to shadow a lot of flight controllers and sort of see what the day-to-day life of a flight controller is, and take some of the classes, and also worked on some of the displays. So that was mostly what I did for my first tour. And then for my second one, I worked with the Systems Test branch in the Crew and Thermal Systems Division, and that was in the Engineering Directorate. And I got to support testing of spacesuits and spacecrafts in thermal vacuum chambers. I wrote a detailed test plan, I CAD (computer aided design)-modeled equipment in Creo, and I also started training to be a test director. And I also helped a little bit with a design for a lunar dust on radiator experiment to fly on the Nova-C Lunar Lander in the future.

Host: Not bad. That’s a pretty broad experience that you’re having. So, you get to look at, work on a lot of different things. Is that what you were hoping to do, to just explore as, as many different areas of NASA as you could?

Kai Cui: Yeah. I think that’s what, like the main thing that I’ve appreciated about all of the different internships, is that I can figure out exactly what type of engineering and what type of projects that I enjoyed doing. With all of these different experiences they’ve all been a little bit different. You know, I’ve got to experience what it’s like to go through training for being a flight controller, versus training to be a test director. And I think it’s interesting to see the differences and also the similarities and see what I maybe want to do with my future. And so, I’ve really appreciated having a chance to do all of these different internships.

Host: So Kai, there’s probably a lot of our listeners that are listening to all of your unique experiences and thinking, what do I have to do to apply for these different opportunities? Whether it’s a grant, whether it’s a community college program, whether it’s internships. You know, and I think one of the main things is, how do I stand out? We’ve heard a lot about Jeff’s experience with having to apply multiple different times. But Kai, what did you do to stand out, you know, amongst the competition, because you really wanted to have the experience in human spaceflight, that’s something that it was really, you were very passionate about. So, what did you have to do to stand out?

Kai Cui: Yeah. I think as Jeff mentioned earlier, having the perseverance is super-important. I also applied for the Pathways program, I think three times, and it took until the third time for me to actually —

Host: Wow.

Kai Cui: — join it. So, what Jeff mentioned is really important. But for me I also think having passion, as you mentioned, is really the key to standing out when you’re in school and when you’re applying for positions. So, whenever I’ve interviewed for a new position, I like to discuss what I want to do in the future and sort of what I’m passionate about. I always bring up my big dream, and it’s to help put the first woman on the Moon, and the first person on Mars. And whenever I talk about this, it has helped start a lot of conversations with people, which has led to a lot of these opportunities within NASA.

Host: Yeah, and it seems like having not only the goal, you know, the goal is, maybe, maybe to work at NASA is a goal, but it seems like having a goal of accomplishing something big, being something, part, being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself seems to give you that oomph, that drive to continue to work hard.

Kai Cui: Yes, definitely. Yep.

Host: Jeff, I’m curious to hear about your perspective, applying so many times. And it seems like you’re one of the few folks that I’ve talked to that is so passionate about such an interesting field, this acoustic field. So, what were the ways that — what did you have to do to stand out and finally land the thing that you wanted to do?

Jeff Severino: Oh, it sounds so rudimentary, but read the directions very thoroughly, and read the posting, because oftentimes the, you know, being, well, I love how you said, you know, being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself — having that drive to be a part of something that’s bigger than yourself, really helps in a sense that you can see where the current position that you’re looking for, where that lands in NASA’s strategic plan and their goal of an entire organization. So, understanding where that kind of collides in the mix really helps. And then, you know, having knowledge about that beforehand really does help you get an upper hand, shows that you’re really interested in the organization as a whole and not necessarily just one aspect. And I really only found out about NASA because of a friend who had a NASA internship before, and he actually stopped me in the hallway — we’re in the same major, mechanical engineering and concentration, but not many, you know, people take interest in aeroacoustics or aerospace engineering per se. And he just, you know, just apply. Just go for it. Just try. I was like, there’s no way I’m going to get an internship at NASA. Like what, you know, do I have? So, I started reading this position and I said, well, but I’m really passionate about these things. And one thing that I noticed was that — and that really stood out to my mentor, Danielle Cook, in the acoustics branch, that I really like the fact that chevrons, which are essentially, they, they are the exhaust of jet engines, and these are kind of spiked ridges that are meant to reduce the sound of jet flow, just the noise of jet flow. And but it’s taken 50, maybe 100 years to develop. And in that endeavor, you know, it would be great to be a part of something like that. I said something along those lines in one of my responses of my NASA questionnaire on intern.nasa.gov. And that I think was probably one of the, you know, why I wanted to be a part of that thing that’s bigger than myself. And I think that was the one thing that helped me stand out. And then the second thing is just working on our communication and always asking, you know, a question when you can, because oftentimes we do attend lectures, or you know, seminars, and there’s not enough, in my opinion, questions being asked, because there’s always something more to learn. And oftentimes to have a good question requires good attention but also a good understanding of how you like to communicate your question, you know? And so, in that aspect, the communication side of things that NASA does is also important. So those two things aside from the engineering things really did help me as a kind of steady backbone to build off of, and kind of my, I guess indication I was trying to make as to how, you know, why should I be a part of NASA.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. You have to have all of those different things. Right, it can’t be just one, it can’t be just really good in engineering, it can’t be just a drive, a drive to be something, you know, do something a part of yourself. It can’t just be you ask a lot of questions. Sounds like it has to be all of those things.

Jeff Severino: Right. And then also, you know, knowing your why is really, you know, why do you do what you do is kind of a big driver not only in times where it gets hard, but also it helps you dissect where you’re going to try to land in the whole grand scheme of NASA.

Host: Yeah. And for me it was tough to figure out when I was young. And I think a lot of people might be in the same boat, you know, like you’re, you have this pressure when you’re young. You may be like, I don’t know what I’m passionate about yet. But you — it’s just a matter of spending the time to go and find that. There might — and it’s just — it’s, I don’t think it’s logical. I think it’s whenever you find it, you’ll know. because you get excited. It’s more of a feeling than it is, you know, a logical perspective of, oh, yeah, this would, you know, this would provide a good means to an end, you know, and, no, this is something I could be passionate about. This is something that I want to be a part of, because it’s bigger than myself.

Jeff Severino: Right. It’s interesting you say that because a lot of times I would say that the procedural aspects of doing some engineering tasks, if you focus on those things you can actually take away not only a lot of lessons that are applicable to other engineering things, but those are the kinds of things that I ended up being the most passionate about. And now in graduate school I write a lot of computer code to kind of do my calculations in the sense that because that was something I didn’t like doing by hand in undergrad. So, I took the time to learn, and I was like, hey, this is pretty interesting. And now that’s essentially what I do as a Pathways intern, I help improve fan noise prediction codes. And I’m having a blast, yes.

Host: And that’s important too, you’ve got to enjoy it. Pedro, I want to hear about your, your experience standing out, because you — what — you know, what did you have to do to stand out to be a part of this aerospace scholars program, and you know, to continue to stand out that landed you internship after internship?

Pedro Salazar: Well, I will say that one thing to stand out either in school or in work, is applying to anything multiple times, whether it’s a scholarship, experience is great, especially for interns. I will make sure that your application talks about who you are as a person, what are your goals, and why you come — what you are passionate about. Another thing to point out is when working then ask questions. During my internship, I did work with different people and then I asked questions when I understand anything, you know, it was hard to understand.

Host: Hmm.

Pedro Salazar: So, you get to meet different people and we just need to learn from them. And also try to be persistent and motivate other students to fight for their dreams and to apply to other opportunities.

Host: Yeah. And so, you know, to, to fight for other people to find their dreams. Your, you sort of stand as an inspiration to those people. You know, you have folks like you, you know, maybe someone that moved from another country and had to learn a new language to do, to do something that they were passionate about. That’s hard, right, that’s hard to assimilate yourself into a new culture. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are trying to do the same thing, but maybe they’re nervous. Maybe they don’t have the confidence that they, that they should have to continue to pursue it, despite the maybe rejection along the way. So, what are you, what are you telling some of these students that come to you and say, Pedro, I want to do what you’re doing.

Pedro Salazar: So I have some more things that when I start to talk to them about the NASA opportunity they would say, oh, [inaudible], or this and that, and I say, no, you just need to be persistent and don’t lose the motivation to keep going.

Host: Perfect. Pedro, what’s exciting you about some of your, some upcoming opportunities for you? You’ve had a lot of internships, you’ve had that, the aerospace scholars experience. What’s next for you?

Pedro Salazar: Next for me will be starting my fourth, at NASA internship center this coming Monday. So then also, I hope to join Pathways in the future and advocate for ESL (English as a Second Language) students.

Host: I love it. Yeah, keep, keep we need more diverse thought, we need more people to come to NASA, and you are an inspiration to those kinds of people, Pedro, so that’s awesome. Kai, what about you, what’s next?

Kai Cui: Yeah, starting in July I’ll be working at Johnson full-time with the Systems Test Branch, I think I was talking about earlier. So, I’ll be training to be a test director for thermal vacuum test.

Host: Very exciting. Yeah, so you finally, you did it, it took, it took a bunch of different programs and, you know, some challenges and some internships, but you got to where you wanted to end up, which is, which is in spaceflight.

Kai Cui: Yeah. I think that at the end of the day being a part of all these programs really helped me find my path. And the Pathways program was one of the most crucial things to help me get this full-time position. And I just really appreciate how these internships have just given me such a wide perspective of what NASA does, and how each center is different and has its own environment. And also, NASA is a great community, and everyone is so passionate about human spaceflight. Spaceflight, anything in general; and I love being a part of it, and I love being part of that bigger mission, like you mentioned.

Host: I think that’s really important because it can be one thing to, you know, to want to pursue something early on, just to be driven, oh, man, I want to work in, I want to work in spaceflight; that’s the industry that I want to be a part of. And at any point, you know, you could have deterred from it. You could have had a bad experience; you could have had a bad mentor. But it sounds like it was, you had a positive experience, you had a round experience, and that really helped you to solidify, yes, absolutely, that is what I want to dedicate my career to full-time.

Kai Cui: Yeah, I think all of the internships were all very positive. And I want to keep coming back. I want to keep applying to internships. And I wanted to be a part of this community in a more like permanent way once I graduated college. And so that’s what led me to doing more and more of these internships and what led me here today.

Host: I love it. Now, Jeff, what about you, what are you excited about?

Jeff Severino: Oh, I’m excited to finally be a part of the NASA family in a bigger way. You know, it was cool to do it in my own way at the university and through internships. But the cool thing about Pathways internship is that, you know, upon completion of a successful internship you can be offered a full-time position. So that is a really cool thing to strive for, but with that being said, I’m really looking forward to see how time progresses and how other interns come into the mix. I really love how NASA is not sending their interns to get coffee, you know, they’re at the forefront, and with, you know, the other civil servants and contractors. So, I’m really excited to see how, you know, this Artemis generation is going to help, you know, progress NASA’s mission, you know, as a whole organization. So, it’s been really cool seeing it.

Host: It really is exciting times. And for you, for you three, Pedro, Jeff, and Kai, I really appreciate you guys coming on Houston We Have a Podcast, because I think it’s really important that as, Jeff you were talking about this new generation, as this new generation’s coming on, I think what people don’t realize is just how many different opportunities there are to work at NASA. Even before actually working at NASA, all of you explored so many different types of programs. And so, at the end here after, after we close off, I’ll, I’ll make sure to give some links and stuff where people can go explore those. But I think having all three of you guys on here to explain just the different possibilities there are to do something that you’re passionate about, I think that’s really rewarding. So, to all three of you, again, Pedro, Jeff, and Kai, thanks so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast. It’s been a pleasure to talk to all three of you today.

Jeff Severino: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I’m genuinely listening, and I really hope you keep pushing and good luck.

Kai Cui: Yeah, thank you so much. This is really great to talk about all the experiences. And I really hope this, you know, encourages more students to join in and join the NASA family.

Pedro Salazar: Yes. Thank you so much. I hope this brings more diverse community to NASA.

[ Music]

Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around! It was really a pleasure for me to talk to Pedro, Jeff, and Kai today and learn about all of their different experiences. Now, you’re probably wondering, where do I even start to look at all the different opportunities, because remember, these are just three different examples with different opportunities sprinkled in there, of how these students ended up at NASA. But there’s a lot more. So, go ahead and search NASA Office of STEM Engagement, STEM being Science Technology Engineering and Math; NASA Office of STEM Engagement. There’s a website on NASA.gov, and they have a plethora of different programs that you can look at. There’s also some student learning opportunities, some curriculum, all the way from K through 12. We’ve got some college programs there, and grants. This is just the beginning. So, you can go to that website and check out all the different opportunities where you can get involved with NASA, really at any stage in school. A lot of these, actually all three of them were interns before they started full-time. Jeff and Kai both mentioned that they’re going to be starting full-time very soon, and they started at different NASA internship programs. So, I’ve got a couple of websites for you; intern.nasa.gov and pathways.jsc.nasa.gov. Don’t worry if you didn’t memorize that, just go to our episode webpage, we’ll have the links right there for you to click. We’re one of many NASA podcasts all across the agency. Go to NASA.gov/podcasts to check us out, and the many other shows that we have here at NASA. We, Houston We Have a Podcast, are on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea for the show. Just make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on June 16, 2021. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido, Jennifer Hernandez, Abel Morelos, and Veronica Seyl. And thanks again to the interns for taking the time to come on this show. Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on and tell us what you think of our podcast. We’ll be back next week.