Summer Discoveries
Sara Roman
Hometown: Wellington, Ohio
Class: Junior
College: College of Aeronautics and Engineering
Major: Mechatronics Engineering Technology
Internship: Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Intern Project, a paid internship hosted by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, for 10 weeks in the summer, with potential continuation during the school year. Students are introduced to space communications and navigation knowledge and practices, and they communicate their findings in a final presentation to NASA management. Each student is paired with an experienced, multidisciplinary mentor who counsels the student and helps with career planning.
"College always felt to me like the last steps of education, but now I realize it’s my first step into a larger world.”
Summer project: High Speed Delay-Tolerant Network Heat Sink and Packaging Plan, which will be sent up to the International Space Station. Roman worked on plotting where each component will fit into the final design and taking precision measurements of components that need to be thermally interfaced with the cold plate on the International Space Station.
Preparation: “Kent State provided me with classes that built my skills from an early start, as well as teachers who encouraged me to challenge myself in and out of the classroom. Without them, I wouldn’t have had the confidence in myself and my skills to apply to this NASA internship.”
Key insight: “My internship helped me discover a newfound passion for learning, as I can now see how the processes taught in class are applied to real-life problems. I have even been inspired by my mentor, Norm Prokop, to pick up a programming minor because after working with him, I have learned how applicable the skill is to every project I encounter. College always felt to me like the last steps of education, just one more to go, but now I realize it’s my first step into a larger world.”
Future plans: “Besides looking to pick up a minor in computer science, I am inspired to continue my education and pursue a masters and/or doctorate after college.”
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