Starting a thread to highlight the research work of 16 (and counting) incredible interns that have worked with me at @NASAGoddard in the last decade. [1/n]

I sometimes hear that interns are a ‘time-sink’ for active researchers: valuable for intern but less benefit for the mentor. My experience has been the opposite: by thinking about projects in new ways, I have learned a ton from my interns too. [2/n]

I am including here both ‘traditional’ #NASA interns (students working for the summer or a semester), as well as ‘post-bacs’, a growing cohort of recent graduates doing a ‘gap year’ of full-time research between undergraduate and graduate/PhD studies. [3/n]

I set my interns a goal to contribute meaningfully to an ongoing research project at @NASAGoddard in planetary science, and if they stay for a full year or longer, to present results at conferences and write first-author papers. They usually exceed expectations! [4/n]

Starting today, I’m going to highlight the work of 2 former interns each day for a week. The goal is to show how much can be accomplished by the highly motivated, enthusiastic early career scientists that are out there waiting for an opportunity to shine :) [5/n]

My first intern was @astroguitarist, a @Uofmaryland undergraduate intern at @NASAGoddard from 2009-2010. Val worked on infrared spectroscopy of propane gas for application to @CassiniSaturn studies of Titan. [6/n]

Val is an enthusiastic SciCommer and can also be found @TitanSaturnMoon. She went on to graduate studies in Sci Comm @GeorgeMasonuU and volunteered with the @InSaturnsRings movie project. She is now in SciComm at the @SETIInstitute. [7/n]

@AndrewAnnex was a UVa undergraduate and summer 2013 intern at @NASAGoddard. He developed mapping products for @CassiniSaturn observational coverage of Titan by the CIRS instrument. [8/n]

Andrew's work became a core part of an ApJS paper summarizing CIRS observations of Titan and was a co-author: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/ab3799/meta @ioppublishing. He is now a PhD student at @johnshopkins working on remote sensing of Mars. [9/n]

That's all for today, will highlight the work of two more interns tomorrow. [10/n]

Tracy Esman was a summer intern in 2013 from UVa. Tracy worked on spectral modeling comparison between archean and present-day Earth, and solar system planets as exoplanets around other stellar types. [11/n]

Tracy went on to become a PhD student at @UarizonaLPL working on @MAVEN2Mars. [12/n]

Cheong Chan (then at @Yale) was a spring semester intern at @NASAGoddard in 2014. He developed models of electrical noise on @CassiniSaturn CIRS spectra and published the results in https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10686-015-9452-3 @SpringerAstro. [13/n]

After his Goddard internship, Cheong changed fields and went on to study for a PhD in Aerospace Engineering at @GeorgiaTech [14/n]

. @ashleympalumbo (an UG at @stonehill_info), summer internship at #NASA #GSFC in 2014. Her topic was 'Earth as an exoplanet', recalculating the atmospheric structure and infrared spectrum for Earth around different stellar types, with help from @shawndgoldman. [15/n]

Ashley stayed in planetary science and went on to study for a PhD at @BrownUniversity focusing on the early Martian climate: https://ashleypalumbo.wixsite.com/ashleypalumbo  [16/n]

. @enceladude (UG at @BU_Tweets) was a summer intern in 2014, and became my first post-bac from 2014-2015. Joe studied CO isotopes on Titan from @almaobs, making the first detection of C17O in the outer solar system, and published results in ApJL: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFM.P11C3784H/abstract [17/n]

After his post-bac at @NASAGoddard, Joe was accepted to grad school at @JohnsHopkins where is currently finishing his PhD work on the composition of Saturn's atmosphere using @CassiniSaturn mass spectroscopy measurements from the final plunge. [18/n]

Tracy, @ashleympalumbo and @enceladude along with two fellow interns, also had a more unconventional experience during their @NASA internship, being sent to Titan as tour guides... :)
[19/n]

. @Malena_Rice was a @UCBerkeley UG during her summer internship in 2015. She worked on Titan coverage maps with @CassiniSaturn CIRS and modeling of Titan water. The figure shows latitude & time of CIRS limb observations superimposed on atmospheric temperature changes. [20/n]

. @malena_rice is now a PhD student at @Yale studying exoplanets and active in science outreach. [21/n]

Ned Molter ( @Macalester UG) was a post-bac with me from 2015-2016. Ned worked on new isotopic measurements of HCN on Titan using @almaobs, including the first published abundances for DCN and H13C15N: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/152/2/42/meta [22/n]

Ned is now a PhD student at @UCBerkeley working on remote sensing of planets including the Earth. [23/n]

Justin Roberts-Pierel ( @BowdoinCollege Grad), post-bac at @NASAGoddard 2015-2016, measured D/H on Jupiter & Saturn from @CassiniSaturn and ISO data to help advance understanding of planetary formation and structure: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aa899d/meta. [24/n]

Justin is now a PhD student in astrophysics at @UofSC, with a rapidly growing publication list: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DUHV8qMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao [25/n]

Nick Lombardo ( @CCSU UG) worked with me for several years: intern in summer 2016 & spring 2017, and a 2-year post-bac 2017-2019. He capped all his research work by publishing an impressive three first-author papers in 2019! [26/n]

Nick's work focused on searching for rarefied ('trace') gases in Titan's atmosphere, and the highlight was his detection of a new molecule (propadiene) not previously seen before in space, using observations with @NASA_IRTF. Nick is now PhD student at @Yale [27/n]

Skylar Shaver ( @CUsystem UG), spring 2017 intern. Sky worked to develop an instrument that could measure trace gases on Titan on a future atmospheric probe, using low-cost commerical parts to build a benchtop prototype. [28/n]

. @skydance010 is also an enthusiastic artist and dancer, and presented me with this wonderful, colorful painting inspired by Saturn's clouds. Sky is now studying for a PhD in aerospace engineering at @CUsystem. [29/n]

Mona El Morsy was a French MS student who completed two internships in 2017 and 2018, working with a @NASAGoddard team to develop a LIDAR system for remote sensing of Mars and Titan, shown here with the lab experiment. [30/n]

Mona's LIDAR work at #NASA become the basis of her MS dissertation, and she is now a PhD student at the University of Marseille working on space instrumentation. Bon chance Mona! [31/n]

OK, I'm back to finish this thread after a Twitter break to deal with those inevitable scientific deadlines. Next up we have... [32/n]

Max Parks ( @Maxnwil), post-bac 2018-2020. Max performed exploratory investigations while at @NASAGoddard on a number of @ALMAobs datasets including Ceres, Uranus and Mars. [33/n]

Max's work uncovered imaging distortions in an existing @almaobs observation of Mars: useful information that will set the stage for improved observations in future. Max is now a PhD student in planetary science at @UCLA [34/n].

Jennifer Ruliffson (UNF Jacksonsville, UG), summer intern 2019. She worked on laboratory Raman characterization of samples returned from an Iceland glacier, to help #NASA design future instruments to be sent to icy/ocean worlds. [35/n]

Post-internship, Jennifer is now working at @MadeInSpace helping to support the @ISS_Research
and its crew. Way to go! [36/n]

Tanner Hayes ( @UnivOfNevada UG). Post-bac 2019-2021. Tanner has been working on spectral classification of icy and rocky surfaces of moons, including Dione and Luna. He is heading off in Feb to take up a @FulbrightPgrm Fellowship at Freie Universitat in Berlin. [37/n].

Dakotah Tyler (Univ. of Cincinnati, UG). Spring intern 2020. Football player-turned astrophycist, Dakotah worked on imaging of Mars using data from @SAOAstro sub-millimeter array (SMA), and is now conducting exoplanet research for a PhD at @UCLA. [38/n]

As I finish this thread, I want to emphasize that the accomplishments made during these internships have been 99% due to the interns themselves: I may have passed them the ball, but they were ones who caught it, and ran it to the goal line for a touchdown :) [39/n]

When I was digging through my archives to piece together this thread, I was wowed in retrospect by the diversity of projects these interns have done, and gone on to do. [40/n]

It’s been a real privilege to work with these enthusiastic early career scientists, and see their rapid development over the short time they are working with me. [41/n]

That’s all for now! I have a new group of interns working with me right now despite the pandemic (in virtual mode) who are just as great, and whose work will be featured in a future thread. Oh, and one more thing... [42/n]

For more information on current internship opportunities at #NASA see: http://intern.nasa.gov  and follow @NASAPeople. [43/43]