By Madeline Reinsel

This summer, 24 undergraduates from across the country gathered at Virginia Commonwealth University to learn what it takes to be a NASA scientist. The space agency’s rigorous Student Airborne Research Program exposes them to the world of remote sensing, data analysis and research skills that comprise a modern Earth scientist’s toolkit.

And for the college students, “airborne” isn’t just part of a fancy title. The group took to the skies in June, in aircraft ranging from a small prop plane to a mobile-laboratory jet, to crisscross the state and measure carbon and methane fluxes, air quality, vegetation structure and ecosystem health.

Those airborne experiences were coupled with on-the-ground training and daily mission briefings at the STEM Building on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus. The students were also housed on campus through the support and coordination of VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences.

“I am thrilled to see the continued growth of not just this program but of our partnership with NASA,” P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., VCU’s vice president of research and innovation, said at the program’s final presentations, which were hosted at the Eugene P. and Lois E. Trani Center for Life Sciences in early August. VCU Rice Rivers Center hosted one of the student research teams this year, as well as portions of the program during its inaugural year on the East Coast in 2023.

The students’ daily meetings with VCU and NASA scientists included lessons on weather forecasting, computer coding and atmospheric chemistry.  

“While it’s a training program for the students, it's more than that, because publication-quality data collections happen from the ground and the air. It’s an exciting opportunity for the students and also for VCU,” said Chris Gough, Ph.D., a VCU Life Sciences and Sustainability professor and the executive director of the Rice Rivers Center, who taught sections of the program alongside NASA-supported VCU postdoctoral scholars Lisa Haber, Ph.D., and Brandon Alveshere, Ph.D.

The students also worked in small groups to complete research projects, including at the Rice Rivers Center, and took field trips to sites throughout Virginia, such as NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Great Dismal Swamp.

Sara Typrin, a student from Carleton College in Minnesota, worked under the supervision of VCU researchers, studying forest die-off in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge along Maryland’s Eastern Shore due to saltwater intrusion into the ground beneath the forest.

“I’m really excited to be a part of this program, and I feel like I learned a lot,” she said. “I think everyone is just so kind and easy to talk to, and we’ve gone on a lot of adventures throughout Richmond.”

And since the students are working on real NASA campaigns, their work doesn’t just stay in the classroom. It is part of larger NASA missions to improve predictions of air quality, measure methane emissions from the region’s wetlands, inform wetland and forest management, and assess plant biodiversity.

“This program is a phenomenal opportunity for the most talented students across the country to convene here on the East Coast and get hands-on experiences that will prepare them for a future in world-changing research as future scientists,” Rao said. “We see ourselves as important facilitators for this and are honored to once again host this program.”