Brandon Wilson, a senior majoring in environmental sciences with a concentration in renewable energy, recently completed the Student Airborne Research Program at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The Student Airborne Research Program is an eight-week summer internship program that allows students to conduct research on one of NASA’s aircraft for studying atmospheric chemistry, air quality, forest ecology and ocean biology.
Wilson participated in multiple flights on the Beechcraft B200 King Air and P-3 Orion aircrafts to collect greenhouse gas emission data over areas of Baltimore, Maryland and Northern Virginia. He also built machine learning models to study the effect of wildfires on air quality.
Check out the Q&A below to learn more about Wilson’s experience and how the College of Natural Resources helped to prepare him.
How did you find out about this internship and why were you interested in it?
I honestly Googled “NASA Internships” and it was the third link. I was quite surprised when delving into the reason for and story behind this internship. What motivated me to apply was their core ideal of addressing the concerns in the environmental science field with the unique, powerful instruments available at NASA.
What new skills or information have you learned?
I learned so much about how this wonderful agency operates. All NASA facilities work hand-in-hand for the purpose of changing the possible. From living at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to presenting my final research at NASA’s Langley Research Center, the culture at NASA is incredibly inviting. The Transform to Open Science initiative at NASA pushes for a closer collaboration between the community around us and NASA-based science research. This wonderful initiative broadens participation and generates greater impact in the overall field of science, which only pushes the goal of making our world a better place.
How did the College of Natural Resources prepare you?
I am so thankful for the many incredible College of Natural Resources and Data Science Academy faculty members who have pushed me to be where I am today. Dr. Caren Cooper and Dr. Kelly Lynn Mulvey have played pivotal roles throughout my undergraduate journey here at NC State. They provided me an opportunity to work directly under their guidance in their lab, allowing me to gain skills in data science and data processing.
Dr. Zakiya Leggett has also provided me with amazing guidance on how to navigate my undergraduate journey in order to reach my goals and has also been highly influential in my journey here at NC State. Dr. Lincoln Pratson and Dr. Dalia Patino-Echeverri of Duke University provided me with my first research opportunity to begin to explore earth sciences in-depth. I am very grateful for their guidance and expertise as they sparked my interest in research.
What are your long-term goals and how does this internship factor in?
My long-term career goals are to continue working at NASA as a data scientist. I would love to pursue my pilot license and continue to conduct airborne research. I believe this internship has provided me with so much accessibility and valuable experience about many careers in natural sciences and I would love to explore further into how I can become involved more in their TOPS initiative.
What advice would you give students who are looking for internships?
Allow for curiosity to be the driving force behind your tenacity, not metric success. Failure is inevitable when learning so become comfortable with failing forward and push for changing the possible.
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