Student R&D Program
Overview
NASA Academic Mission Services (NAMS) Student Research & Development (R&D) Program supports current and future research by encouraging students to continue their education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields to support NASA's Mission.
The NAMS contract, led by USRA, provides NASA Ames Research Center with capabilities to fulfill mission requirements from fundamental research and development through field-test deployments and operational science missions.
The Student R&D Program supports the overall mission of NAMS. The key technology areas include: Aeronautics, Earth Science, Intelligent Systems and Bio-Sciences and the goal of the program is to advance the research being performed on the NAMS contract by identifying and providing students with research projects, which align with their education goals in STEM fields.
The unique aspect of this program is for the student to work collectively with the NAMS PI and academic professor to ensure successful outcome of the project milestones and their educational thesis are met.
Internship Objectives
Internships are offered across technical disciplines of NAMS and closely tied to research and development aspects of the tasks. Student support is provided in a wide variety of ways, dependent on individual NAMS research task order objectives and student availability. The students’ education level can range from undergraduate to graduate degrees. The period of performance ranges from 12-week session to longer periods up to two (2) calendar years.
The students can be local or temporarily located at the NASA site or work from their remote university.
Internship Requirements
- Undergraduate and graduate students must be enrolled full-time in a degree-granting program at an accredited college or university.
- Full-time students (through graduate school)
- U.S. Citizen and/or valid visa
- 18 years of age at the time of application (no exceptions)
Student R&D Engagements
Student R&D internship opportunities are available in three general categories:
- Onsite: Internship at the NASA Site
- Virtual: Project-based engagement at a University Campus
- Hybrid: Part-Time Internship at NASA Site and Part-Time at University Campus (e.g., project-based courses with university credit during the school year plus summer internship at NASA site)
For more information on Student R&D internship opportunities, please email Saba Hussain, USRA-NAMS Student R&D Program Manager, at NAMS-studentRD@usra.edu.
Available Research Areas
There are a wide range of techncial research areas available for Student R&D internship opportunities. For a complete listing of the research areas, please download the Student R&D Program datasheet. Internship opportunities are available year-round and a listing of currently available internship opportunities is available on the Student R&D Internship Opportunities web page.
Student Research Highlights
NAMS research activities span the breadth of research conducted at NASA Ames. Some highlights of student research activities are listed below:
Student Spotlight - Chiara Ercolani
Student Spotlight - Vishwanath Bulusu
Student Research Videos
Student Spotlight Video - Antoine Tardy
Student Spotlight Video - Marc Leroy
Student Spotlight Video - Jeremy Coupe
News
- October 7, 2020
- NAMS Student Research and Development Internship Opportunity
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Quantum Artificial Intelligence - Video Editing Internship.
This internship supports community engagement and training in the Quantum Information Sciences. Tasks include editing seminar and training videos for online streaming for materials in Quantum Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Audio and video editing, power point and pdf presentations, creation of custom drawings, animations and graphics.
- May 14, 2020
- Commercial airliners monitoring carbon dioxide emissions from cities worldwide
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For the very first time, aircraft data collected by commercial airlines has the potential to contribute to the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions—an important step in managing the mitigation of such emissions.
- March 10, 2020
- Upcoming Event: Aviation Data Science Short Course
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This course teaches you fundamentals of reproducible data science and analytics, probabilistic reasoning & statistical inference, and machine learning to leverage data generated within the large scope of aviation and aeronautics.
- January 20, 2020
- Upcoming Event: Aviation Data Science Seminar and Video
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As the number of air vehicles grows exponentially with unmanned aerial systems and the amount of data grows exponentially in civil aviation, the future holds more promise for a greater impact from advanced tools and techniques in data science and AI. This Spring, learn from experts in government, industry, and academia in a 12-seminar series, sponsored by USRA and UC Berkeley with NASA Ames Research Center.
- September 28, 2018
- Dr. David Bell: A Keynote Speaker at the Quantum Summit
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Dr. David Bell, Director, USRA Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science and Chief Technologist, NASA Academic Mission Services was a keynote speaker at the Quantum Summit held in San Francisco on September 19, 2018.