Wake Technical Community College
Author(s): Eric Mejia
Mentor: Carrie Hoffman, Wake Technical Community College

Narrow Band Optical Imaging of Comets

Comets are often called “fossils” of the early Solar System, formed 4.6 billion years ago. They contain primitive material that provides clues about how the Solar System formed. Long-period comets, taking more than 200 years to orbit the Sun, come from the Oort Cloud, while short-period comets, with orbits under 200 years, originate in the Kuiper Belt. Studying them reveals the ancient compounds that shaped the Solar System and may have brought water to Earth.

Narrowband Optical Imaging is utilized to examine gas emissions in the comet’s coma, which provide information on its chemical composition and levels of activity. C/2018 Y1 is a long period comet originating from the Oort Cloud and was observed on the night of March 6, 2019, to investigate its gas production, composition and behavior.

Pitt Community College
Author(s): Alilah Richardson, Ryan Borunda, Brandon Hale, Darren Cooke, Kevin Flores Ponce, Omarion Marshall
Mentor: Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, Pitt Community College

Expanding Access to Astronomical Research: Designing A Scalable Centralized Automated Observatory

The desire to understand what lies beyond the atmosphere of Earth has long been a source of inspiration for the pursuit of astronomical research. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Department at Pitt Community College has recognized the significance of promoting interest in space exploration, as it remains a topic of uncertainty despite the technological innovations of today. To expand the range of educational opportunities available to students and faculty, Pitt Community College has amassed a collection of solar telescopes, including a fully automated hydrogen-alpha telescope. These instruments currently operate individually, lacking a centralized location of operation, and this presented an efficiency problem that was noticed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Department. In an effort to solve this issue, the project team developed a design for an automated observatory that would provide sufficient space to accommodate the observational instruments while also incorporating remote operation to allow for the roof to be opened and closed from the classroom if weather station readings permit. As part of this project, the design team also created a reduced-scale, fully functional physical model of the observatory design in order to represent the main operational functions that the full-scale observatory will display and provide a scalable design that can be provided to other institutions and adapted to their specific needs. The overall goal at the conclusion of this project is to utilize the design to advocate for and secure further funding to construct the full-scale solar observatory.

Wake Technical Community College
Author(s): Gabriel Angulo Gonzalez
Mentor: Adam McKay, Appalachian State University

Narrow-Band Optical Imaging of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

Comets preserve material from the early Solar System, and studying their gas emissions provides insight into their chemical composition and activity. This project examines the relative production rates of key molecular species in Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) during its 2022 apparition. Narrow-band imaging data were collected using filters centered on emission features from OH, CN, NH, and C₂. The raw images were processed using a custom data-reduction pipeline that included bias subtraction, flat-field correction, and cosmic-ray removal. Aperture photometry was performed to measure fluxes from the comet, and these measurements were converted into molecular production rates using established fluorescence efficiencies (g-factors) and a Haser model framework. Photometric calibration was achieved through observations of standard stars. The analysis focuses on production-rate ratios such as CN/OH, NH/OH, C₂/OH, NH/CN, and C₂/CN. These ratios provide a more robust means of comparing relative molecular abundances. The resulting mixing ratios suggest that CN is relatively less abundant with respect to OH, while NH and C₂ appear comparatively enhanced relative to CN. Although further comparison with larger comet samples would be required for firm classification, the observed pattern is broadly consistent with compositional variations reported in other comet studies. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to characterize cometary diversity and improve our understanding of the chemical processes that shape comet evolution in the Solar System.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Sophomore, Astrophysics
Author(s): Ansh Muthiyan, Jonathan Keohane, Ethan Nipper, Dylan Dutton, Dan Reichart
Mentor: Dan Reichart, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Integrating VegasAfterglow into the AMpy fitting framework

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous electromagnetic events in the universe, producing broadband afterglows as ultra-relativistic jets interact with the surrounding medium. This medium is called the circumburst medium (CBM). Historically, afterglow modelers have relied on simplistic assumptions regarding the CBM density profile, defaulting to either a constant-density profile or an idealized constant stellar wind profile. However, recent analysis using the AMpy fitting framework has revealed a much wider diversity in CBM density profiles, including structures consistent with interactions at the boundaries of stellar wind bubbles. AMpy is a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) fitting framework, initially using analytical models that assume on-axis emission and omit several physical phenomena captured by the most advanced numerical simulations. To validate and refine these findings, we have integrated the VegasAfterglow numerical model into AMpy’s existing fitting framework. This new model enables more physically realistic modeling, including arbitrary CBM density profiles, complex jet dynamics, off-axis viewing angles, and both forward and reverse shock emission. The dust extinction model has also been updated as part of this effort. This unified modeling pipeline is currently being applied to 15 GRB events. By improving our ability to characterize GRB environments, this work enables future researchers to improve our understanding of late-stage stellar winds of massive stars and has the potential to necessitate revisions to existing physical interpretations of individual GRB events.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Senior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Leah Boff
Mentor: Andrew Mann, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Confirmation of a Young Exoplanet System

Most known exoplanets have been discovered orbiting older stars, partly because older planetary systems tend to be easier to detect and confirm. As stars age, their brightness becomes more stable, and their surface activity decreases, making it easier to observe the small dips in light that occur when a planet passes in front of its star (a “transit”). In contrast, young stars are often highly active and variable, which can hide or mimic planetary signals. This creates a major gap in our understanding of how planets evolve during the first few hundred million years of their lifetimes—an age range when planetary atmospheres may still be changing rapidly and when migration, mass loss, and early system dynamics may still be occurring.

This project investigates the young planetary system TIC 150070085, estimated to be approximately 130 million years old, as a study for improving our ability to identify and characterize exoplanets around young stars. Our main research question is: how can we reliably measure the properties of a ~130 Myr exoplanet system, and what can this reveal about early planet evolution?

To answer this, we analyze space-based photometric observations to isolate transit signals while correcting for stellar rotation and long-term brightness changes. We also combine stellar temperature, rotation, and additional catalog data to estimate the star’s physical properties and refine the age of the system using various methods. Our results strengthen the evidence that TIC 150070085 hosts a transiting planet and demonstrate that careful light-curve detrending and age modeling can reveal young planets that would otherwise be overlooked. Overall, this work supports the importance of targeting ~130 Myr systems to bridge a key missing stage in exoplanet discovery and evolution.

The University of North Carolina at Asheville
Undergraduate – Senior, Physics
Author(s): Jacob H. Crawford
Mentor: Britt Lundgren, The University of North Carolina at Asheville

Using Vintage Glass Plate Observations for Time-Domain Astronomy

Before digital cameras, astronomical observations were taken using glass photographical plates. These observations, ranging in age from a few decades to more than a century, offer astronomers a unique glimpse into the past and the opportunity to perform studies with time baseline depths only glass plates can enable. The study of moving, variable, and transient objects is on the verge of a revolution as the Rubin Observatory begins operation. Rubin Observatory’s primary objective is to conduct the Large Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will image the entirety of its visible night sky at a cadence of roughly once every few nights. The LSST is planned to perform observations for 10 years, giving astronomers ready access to study how the night sky evolves during that time frame. Vintage glass plate observations can extend this time baseline for the regions of the sky they observed by decades, or in some cases, over a century. We produced a python notebook that uses digital scans of glass plates to measure how the brightnesses of their stars have changed over time. Additionally, it allows us to make a catalogue of anomalous objects, such as asteroids, comets, and previously unknown supernovae. Preliminary analysis of a plate scan containing data from 1933 has already produced a candidate supernova.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Masters, Geospatial Science
Author(s): Solomon Burnette
Mentor: Tim Mulrooney, North Carolina Central University

Confederate Meteoritics: Aerolith Surveys from Deep South through Deep Time

The Geospatial study of meteoritics is an engagement with the frequency of recovery– a human activity, not a frequency of planetesimals’ -geo-gravitation — an astrophysical phenomenon. Statisticians must avoid datacentric bias formation – in Pygmalion reification, mistaking analyses of human engagement with phenomena for a study of the phenomena itself. Yielding to these epistemological tensions, Confederate Meteoritics: Aerolith Surveys from Deep South through Deep Time highlights recovery, collection, study and curation of meteorites and related craters in the Southern United States from the 17th to 21st centuries: analyzing clustering and dispersion of subject specimens’ recoveries across various terrains via Bayesian, Moran and Poissant Distributions comparing the 17th to 21st century data with spans of deep geologic time represented by the greater matrix of elder craters versus more recent sky stone recoveries. Analyses of Nearest Neighbor Crater Data generates a pre and post Carbonaceous deep timeline informed synchronic geologic formation narrative from Paleozoic Era (360 Ma) through the Holocene Epoch (<65000a). Confederate Meteoritics’ GIS considerations embrace interdisciplinary overreach gravitating to the assemblage of Geo and Aerospatiale, astrophysical, geological, and statistical sciences

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Senior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Gabe Franzi
Mentor: Adrienne Erickcek, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

What if Dark Matter Isn’t Cold?

What happens to the universe if one of its key components, dark matter, doesn’t behave as we assume? Dark matter makes up 27% of the universe; six times the abundance of ordinary matter. In most cosmological models, dark matter is simply treated as an entirely cold substance with zero inherent velocity. However, there is reason to believe that this might not be the case, and if dark matter isn’t cold, then it completely changes how structure evolves in the universe. While standard computational tools can compute these values in principle, they fail when we push them to the small cosmic scales that we are interested in. These tools are also often a black box from which it is very hard to derive real intuition for how our parameters directly affect the resulting structure. This research aims to develop a robust analytical model that directly maps the momentum distribution of dark matter particles to observable measurements of structure. The model I have developed and implemented computationally yields results that agree within 1% of those obtained using standard tools. The model achieves this accuracy while simultaneously providing much stronger intuition for the underlying physics than standard tools and not suffering from the same scale-related limitations. After continued refinement and optimization of code for efficient computation, my implementation will serve as a valuable tool for identifying observable signatures of non-thermal, non-cold dark matter within cosmic structure.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Astrophysics
Author(s): Simon Wu, Rongmon Bordoloi, Robert Simcoe, Andrew J. Fox, and Jason Tumlinson
Mentor: John Blondin, North Carolina State University

Cosmic Recycling Over 11 Billion Years: Mg II Halo Gas Across Star-Forming, Green-Valley, and Passive Galaxies

Galaxies are surrounded by a huge, diffuse halo of gas known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). The CGM acts as both a reservoir and a recycling pathway for star formation: gas from the CGM can accrete onto galaxies and help sustain new stars, while supernova explosions and stellar winds can drive metal-enriched material back outward. A major open question is how this cool halo gas changes as galaxies shut down star formation—a process known as quenching—and transition from star-forming to passive systems.

We probe this using Mg II absorption, a fingerprint imprinted on the light of background quasars as it passes through galaxy halos. Mg II traces cool (~10,000 K), metal-enriched gas and is closely tied to star formation: magnesium is produced in stars and spread by supernova feedback, while cool CGM gas can also be part of the inflowing material that fuels future star formation. Our sample includes 733 galaxy–quasar sightline pairs spanning 0.14 < z < 2.7, tracking CGM evolution across roughly 11 billion years of cosmic history.

Because “typical” star formation changes over time, we introduce a new redshift-independent star-formation offset to classify galaxies consistently. In this framework, star-forming galaxies are actively building new stars, passive galaxies have little or no ongoing star formation, and green-valley galaxies are systems in transition between these two states as their star formation declines.

We find a strong, continuous trend: Mg II absorption is most common and strongest around star-forming galaxies, weakest around passive galaxies, and intermediate in green-valley systems. In the inner halos—where gas is most likely to recycle and accrete—star-forming galaxies are about 1.7× more likely to host very strong Mg II absorption than passive systems. These results indicate that the cool, metal-bearing CGM traced by Mg II diminishes as galaxies move through the green valley and quench.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Undergraduate – Sophomore, Physics
Author(s): Taylor Ligon
Mentor: Oliver Roberts, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Duration Analysis of Fermi-GBM Gamma-ray Burst Data

The method used to classify Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) relies heavily on measuring how long they last, but the commonly used fluence-based approach often has limitations. We addressed this by developing and applying a new photon-count method (counts-based) to calculate the T90, T50, and T80 durations using public Fermi GBM data. By moving to this photon-count approach we investigated the differences in burst duration resulting from the T90, T50, and T80 calculation methods. This work confirmed that counts-based methods are effective for GRB signals, showing that T80 closely aligns with T90 for classification (especially for bursts with extended tails), while the more sensitive T50 helps isolate the main emission. The research also supported the known finding that higher energy bands typically yield shorter durations. Future work will expand this methodology to the full GBM catalog using automated scripts, connect duration measurements to the bursts’ spectral evolution for deeper analysis, and explore how durations change in their rest frames for GRBs with known redshifts, ultimately supporting the development of more robust classification pipelines for future space missions.

Elon University
Undergraduate – Junior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Jaylem Cheek, Chris Richardson, Jillian Bellovary, Erini Lambrides, Marta Volonteri
Mentor: Chris Richardson, Elon University

Unveiling Ancient Seeds: Self-Consistently Incorporating BH Spin, Accretion States, and Radiative Efficiencies to Predict IMBH SEDs

The discovery of billion-solar-mass quasars at z > 7 by JWST challenges the models of supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth. To explain their rapid emergence, the nature of the initial seed BHs—whether light, medium, or heavy—is essential for holistic interpretation. However, the present-day remnants of these seeds, dormant intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), are observationally elusive, creating a disconnect between seeding theories and empirical constraints. This work aims to bridge this gap by developing a suite of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for these IMBHs, providing targets for current and future multiwavelength observations. We improve existing accretion models by self-consistently incorporating physical parameters, including BH spin (a), accretion rate (mdot), radiative efficiency (e_rad), and photon index of the X-ray spectrum (Gamma_hot). We computed intrinsic SEDs for a range of BH masses, spins, and accretion rates. Our results show that BHs with a constant bolometric luminosity or constant ionization parameter can yield markedly different SEDs across different physical conditions for BH mass, a, and mdot. In particular, we find that measuring only the total luminosity of an IMBH tells you almost nothing about the underlying physics. The SED shape is crucial to understanding the system.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Senior, Physics
Author(s): William C. Storch
Mentor: Andrew W. Mann, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Using Transmission Spectroscopy to Measure the Masses of Young Exoplanets in the Era of the James Webb Space Telescope

In a 2013 paper by Julien de Wit and Sara Seager, a method to constrain the mass of an exoplanet solely through transmission spectroscopy, obtained when the planet transits its host star, is described. This method relies on the fact that if a planet is less massive, its gravitational pull will be weaker on its atmosphere, which results in a larger atmospheric scale height, and thus stronger spectral features. However, as Natasha Batalha et al. pointed out in a 2017 paper, there are confounding variables that lead to degeneracies in this method of mass determination: the presence of clouds in an exoplanetary atmosphere, as well as an atmosphere with a denser composition, can have similar feature-weakening effects on a transmission spectrum as an increased mass would. Starspots can also mimic transmission features, further obscuring mass measurements. Here, we further explore the viability of this method for a sample of young exoplanets, where obtaining the mass with high precision would let us determine the pathway by which the planet evolved into its current state, allowing us to learn more about the infancy of our own Solar System. For each young planet, we create several synthetic transmission spectra, each with variations on the starspot and cloud parameters, corresponding to the specifications of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) instrument modes NIRISS SOSS and NIRSpec G395H. We then employ grid modeling and Bayesian retrieval frameworks to measure the mass from these spectra. We find that starspots and atmospheric composition are not major sources of degeneracy, and that NIRISS SOSS gives more accurate and precise mass results than NIRSpec G395H. We also find that clouds can be major sources of degeneracy in obtaining the mass, encouraging future work to determine realistic aerosol formations in these young planets’ atmospheres.

Raleigh Charter High School
Author(s): Pragna Surabathula
Mentor: Shanti Swaroop Kandala, Mentor

Investigating Exoplanet Atmospheres Through Spectroscopy

Exoplanet studies are important from the perspective of better understanding the planets’ evolution and identifying other habitable worlds that could support life. Studying exoplanet atmospheres provides key insights into their chemical composition, climate dynamics, and potential habitability, shaping our understanding of planetary evolution and the conditions necessary for life. This study focussed on the detection of molecules that provide key insights into the habitability of a planet viz., water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Transmission spectroscopy enables detailed characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres, providing insights into their composition, structure, and evolution. This study examines ten exoplanets—GJ 1214 b, K2-18 b, TRAPPIST-1d, HAT-P-11 b, Kepler-51 b, WASP-6 b, WASP-12 b, HD 189733 b, XO-1 b, and KELT-11 b—spanning a range of planetary classes, from mini-Neptunes to hot Jupiters. Utilizing observational data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive and StellarPlanet transmission spectra database, combined with computational analysis in Jupyter Lab Python. Spectral features are influenced by atmospheric escape, cloud coverage, and temperature variations, with several planets exhibiting high-altitude hazes that obscure absorption signals. Notably, K2-18 b shows strong water absorption, reinforcing its potential for habitability studies. These findings refine models of atmospheric chemistry and planetary evolution, informing target selection for future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and next-generation spectroscopic missions.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Astrophysics
Author(s): Derick Flores, Rongmon Bordoloi, North Carolina State University; Joseph Burchett, New Mexico State University; Andrew Fox, STScI; J. Christopher Howk, University of Notre Dame; Nicolas Lehner, University of Notre Dame; John O’Meara, W. M. Keck Observatory; Benjamin Oppenheimer, University of Colorado, Boulder; Jason Prochaska, UC, Santa Cruz; Robert Simcoe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jason Tumlinson, STScI/JHU, Jack Higginson, North Carolina State University, Simon Wu, North Carolina State University, Ahmed Shaban, University of South Carolina
Mentor: Rongmon Bordoloi, North Carolina State University

O VI Absorption Reveals Warm-Hot CGM Evolution around Massive Starburst and Post-Starburst Galaxies

We present a survey of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around massive (log(M⋆/M⊙) > 11), extremely blue (u − r < 1.65) starburst and post-starburst galaxies. Using HST/COS spectroscopy, we probe the CGM out to 250 kpc, focusing on the inner regions (r/rvir < 0.5) where feedback and quenching are most influential. We find that O VI absorption shows a high covering fraction (68.7%) at log N ≥ 14, significantly higher than the 22.2% observed for quiescent galaxies of the same mass, and a larger column density scatter (σ = 0.55) compared to L⋆ galaxies (σ = 0.40). These trends suggest that the O VI reservoir is being actively depleted as galaxies evolve from star-forming to passive. We interpret the warm-hot O VI phase as transient: radiative shocks in starbursts create and maintain abundant O VI , but this fragile component is progressively ionized away, cooled, or destroyed as galaxies quench. Thus, O VI provides a sensitive tracer of the processes driving the depletion of the warm-hot CGM and offers new insight into the bimodality of O VI between star-forming and quenched galaxies.

Elon University
Undergraduate – Junior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Jonathan Berkson, Chris Richardson, Vianney Lebouteiller, Curro Rodriguez Montero, Maxime Varese, Jordan Wels, Lise Ramambason, Frédéric Galliano, Harley Katz
Mentor: Chris Richardson, Elon University

Peering Into Gas and Dust: A Novel Approach for Scaling Elemental Abundances and Depletion Factors for Identifying Dwarf AGN Using Coronal Lines

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; 10²–10⁶ M_Sun) bridge the mass gap between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. Detecting these objects is challenging due to their intrinsic faintness and their host dwarf galaxies’ low stellar masses and metallicities. Coronal emission lines, high-ionization spectral features produced between the narrow and broad line regions, provide a potential diagnostic for detecting these hidden black holes. However, current photoionization models underpredict coronal line strengths in low-metallicity environments, limiting their utility as probes of IMBH activity. This research investigates whether simplified treatments of interstellar dust contribute to these discrepancies. Using the photoionization code CLOUDY, models of dwarf-galaxy environments were constructed with updated prescriptions that allow dust abundance, grain-surface elemental depletion, and radiative dust destruction to vary with local environmental conditions. Model predictions were compared across a range of metallicities to evaluate the impact of dust physics on coronal line strengths. Preliminary findings indicate that dust strongly modulates predicted coronal line emission, particularly for refractory elements such as iron. Incorporating a realistic dust prescription aims to bring model predictions into closer agreement with observed emission-line intensities, enhancing the reliability of coronal lines and allowing predictions to be made for future observations to use coronal lines as indicators of nuclear IMBHs and their characteristics.

Elon University
Undergraduate – Senior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Morgan Micharski
Mentor: Chris Richardson, Elon University

Exploring Molecular Hydrogen (H2) as a Gas Reservoir and Excitation Diagnostic for Dwarf Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)

Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) are objects between 10^2-10^6 M⊙ that reside in dwarf galaxies, and are a key constituent in understanding galaxy-black hole coevolution. However, detecting IMBHs is challenging due to their notoriously low accretion rates. When IMBHs are actively accreting within a dwarf AGN, the radiation emitted excites gases around it, which yields infrared emission line spectra that assist in identifying them. Additionally, evidence of molecular hydrogen (H2) has been found in the inner regions of larger AGN, and could exist within dwarf AGN. Previous literature investigated an unresolved, very low metallicity (0.05 Z⊙) dwarf galaxy identified as a WISE AGN, which was followed up with JWST NIRSpec, revealing prominent H2 emission lines. Utilizing these observations as constraints, we ran Cloudy photoionization simulations assuming a minimum cloud mass of 10^4 M⊙, a black hole with a mass of 10^3 M⊙, and a low accretion rate, while varying the hydrogen column density and hydrogen number density. We analyzed the resulting H2 emission line spectra using two diagnostic diagrams capable of differentiating star-forming regions from AGN. When comparing our simulations to the observed dwarf galaxy, we found that our simulations do not closely replicate its emission line spectra or register as an AGN. Investigating the abundance and reaction pathways of the simulations revealed that neutral and ionized hydrogen are more abundant than H2. According to our current results, H2 is unlikely to robustly identify dwarf AGN. Due to the relatively low abundance of H2 within the system, it is also unlikely that a large portion of the gas reservoir for accretion is in the state of molecular hydrogen.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Junior, Physics
Author(s): Meredith Smith, Joel Tibbetts, Amy Keesee
Mentor: Amy Keesee, University of New Hampshire

Validation of Equatorial Projections of TWINS ENA Temperatures with In-Situ Measurements

The characterization of mesoscale magnetotail plasma dynamics is crucial for the developing understanding of plasma processes occurring in the magnetosphere during periods of enhanced geomagnetic activity. The in-situ sensors contained within the Time History Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) missions provide reliable measurements of local plasma properties but are inherently limited in spatial resolution. Energetic neutral atoms (ENA) imaging missions like the Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS) allow for a global line-of-sight integrated perspective of the magnetosphere. Although the orientations of TWINS fields of view vary with the satellites’ positions, equatorially projected ion temperature maps provide a consistent frame of reference, placing the origin of the particles within the plasma sheet by mapping the particles’ trajectories along lines of sight to estimated initial locations of charge-exchange within the equatorial plane (Keesee et al., 2014).

Enhanced ion temperatures can be an indicator of geomagnetic substorms and associated magnetic reconnection. However, effective temperatures are statistical quantities, and their practicality in scientific studies is dependent upon the statistical significance of these fitted parameters.

A list of TWINS intervals with enhanced ion temperatures was identified via Keesee et al.’s algorithm for the detection of mesoscale heated regions (Keesee et al., 2022). A list of dipolarizing flux bundles detected by THEMIS is publicly available (Zhang, 2019). From these datasets, intervals will be selected where TWINS observations and corresponding in-situ measurements are available. The average ion temperature within the interval will be compared with the projected TWINS ion temperature, while ENA flux spectra within the mesoscale heated region will be compared with that of the surrounding spatial bins in an effort to determine minimum relative flux enhancement and counts for the significance of results. This work will contribute to ongoing simulations of magnetospheric conditions and ENA imaging during storm and substorm conditions.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Junior, Astrophysics
Author(s): Victor Trabold
Mentor: John Blondin, North Carolina State University

Hydrodynamic Modeling of Mass Transfer in CYG X-1 and Accretion onto the Black Hole

Cygnus X-1 is a high-mass X-ray binary system that contains a black hole and an O-type supergiant. Our simulations of Cygnus X-1 successfully match the observed behavior of the mass transfer and accretion made by previously published papers, giving us visual insight into this system.

This study employs the novel VH-1 hydrodynamics code to simulate the circumbinary gas dynamics, mass accretion, and mass transfer of Cygnus X-1. These simulations are made using high-performance computers at North Carolina State University and model the interaction of the wind between the black hole and the donor star HDE 226868. We used parameters from various recent research papers that observed this system using modern methods. Our simulations reveal key insights into the mass transfer efficiency and reproduce key observational features. These results provide new insights into wind-fed black hole accretion dynamics in high-mass X-ray binary systems.

Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute
Author(s): Marina Herrera and Aleksandr Serbinowksi
Mentor: Denise Williams, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute

Harnessing Huitlacoche Fungi for Renewable Bioproducts: From Agricultural Waste to Itaconic Acid

This project investigates the capacity of the fungus Ustilago maydis, commonly called huitlacoche, to convert lignocellulosic biomass into itaconic acid, a high-value bio-based chemical with applications in sustainable plastics and resins. By evaluating agricultural waste as a fermentation feedstock, our project aims to develop an accessible bioconversion workflow that can be implemented in educational settings while also contributing to broader goals in renewable biomanufacturing. These efforts align with NASA’s mission to advance resource-efficient biological production strategies that could support long-duration space missions, where generating essential materials from limited biomass inputs will be crucial.

To date, we have focused on establishing U. maydis cultures and characterizing their morphology under a range of growth conditions. We successfully cultured this fungus on multiple commercial and homemade media including YEPAD, potato dextrose, and cornmeal dextrose yeast. Microscopy revealed that the organism consistently produced filamentous structures across all media tested. This observation is noteworthy because the published literature generally describes laboratory cultures of U. maydis as growing predominantly in a yeast-like form, with filamentous growth typically associated with mating events or plant infection rather than routine in vitro conditions. While these early cultures clearly show hyphal development, the presence of teliospores has not been confirmed and remains under investigation. These preliminary findings raise interesting questions about how nutrient composition, media stress, or strain heterogeneity may influence developmental transitions in this organism.

The next phase of the project will begin once our corn plants reach the appropriate developmental stage for inoculation. We will then assess colonization efficiency, biomass degradation, and itaconic acid production in small-scale fermentations using plant material and agricultural waste substrates. The results will help evaluate the potential of U. maydis as a platform organism for sustainable, closed-loop biomanufacturing.

Durham Technical Community College
Author(s): Dex Aucoin and Josh McMenemy
Mentor: Eric Punkay, Durham Technical Community College

Biological Computing with Physarum polycephalum

This project focuses on the plasmodial slime mold, Physarum polycephalum; a model organism for environmentally conscious computation. Despite being a single cell protist, slime molds have shown the remarkable capability to find the shortest distance in a maze when connecting multiple food sources. Our research focuses on developing methods to understand, optimize, and monitor slime mold maze solving behavior.

Durham Technical Community College
Author(s): Ler Moo
Mentor: Darryl K. Bing, Durham Technical Community College

Microbial Fuel Cell Technology to Observe Gluconeogenesis in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Gluconeogenesis is the metabolic pathway that produces glucose from non-carbohydrate precursors (like lactate, glycerol, and amino acids) to maintain glucose levels during fasting or when glucose is scarce. It is a conserved process in both humans and yeast, featuring key enzymes that bypass irreversible steps in glycolysis. The four key enzymes necessary for gluconeogenesis in humans are actually conserved in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae (i.e. yeast).

The proposed research will utilize microbial fuel cell technology (MFC) to observe gluconeogenesis in. Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. Microbial fuel cells are bio-electrochemical devices that use microorganisms (e.g. bacteria or yeast) as catalysts to oxidize organic matter (typically waste) and convert chemical energy directly into electricity. They function by transferring electrons generated during microbial metabolism to an anode, which flow through a circuit to a cathode. To function, MFCs must be inoculated with a biofuel (e.g. glucose), and the oxidation of the biofuel under anaerobic conditions creates an electrical potential.

While carbohydrates serve as the typical biofuel, the hypothesis of this lab is that amino acids can be a viable substitute. Additionally, it is expected that yeast cells, via transamination and gluconeogenesis, will convert amino acids into glucose which subsequently will be oxidized to yield an electrical potential.

Amino acids are classified as: glucogenic, ketogenic and both glucogenic/ketogenic, based on their capacity to be converted to either glucose or ketone bodies. It is safe to assume that an electrical potential generated from amino acids indicates that real-time gluconeogenesis is occurring. The goals of this research are: (1) observe and compare the voltage output from the MFC using glucose vs. amino acid as biofuels; (2) determine if a correlation exists between voltage output and amino acid classification. (3) The aforementioned work will be repeated using Escherichia Coli as the catalyst in the MFC

Wake Technical Community College
Author(s): Ilona Barbaray
Mentor: Carrie Hoffman, Wake Technical Community College

Subclone of guide RNAs (gRNAs) that target a predicted regulatory element in obesity disease

Obesity is a chronic disease affecting over 42% of adults in the United States, significantly increasing the risk for heart failure and diabetes. The Dr. Mohlke Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill is investigating the genetic variants that are associated with this condition. This research specifically explores whether certain DNA sequences, known as enhancers, regulate the expression of the FNDC3B gene in fat cells. To investigate this, CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is employed, a molecular tool designed to temporarily repress specific genetic regions. We designed 10 unique guide RNAs (gRNAs) to target a single regulatory element hypothesized to control FNDC3B. Our primary objective was to successfully subclone these gRNAs into a specialized vector, a bacterial plasmid, to enable future testing in human adipose cells.

The methodology involved several precise molecular steps:

• Generation of gRNA Inserts: Annealing primers to create double-stranded DNA oligonucleotides.
• Ligation and Transformation: Inserting these oligonucleotides into a plasmid vector and introducing them into E. coli cells for replication.
• DNA Collection: Purifying the replicated plasmid DNA using a Maxiprep procedure.
• Verification: Utilizing PCR and gel electrophoresis to confirm the presence and correct size (~250bp) of the cloned elements.

Our results confirmed the successful creation of the gRNA pool, with a high final DNA concentration of 2190.8 ng/μL and high purity. This successful subcloning provides the essential tools for upcoming experiments at the Mohlke Lab, where these plasmids will be used to determine how this specific genetic variant influences the development of obesity.

Western Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Elly Gragg
Mentor: Shannon Kincaid, Western Piedmont Community College

Hurricane-Induced Habitat Changes and the Decline of American Ginseng

American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) is a shade-loving perennial native to North America, that thrives in well-drained north-and east-facing slopes. Valued for its medicinal properties, this plant’s roots hold cultural and economic significance in Appalachian communities whose harvesting traditions run deep. In September 2024, Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina, causing lasting environmental disruption. This study identifies the effects that natural disasters such as Hurricane Helene have inflicted on populations of American Ginseng surrounding Western Piedmont Community College. Pre-storm data indicated eight healthy populations of Ginseng with several patches of mature 4-pronged plants, while various smaller (2-3 pronged) plants showed healthy signs of herbivory. Post-storm observations revealed a sharp decline in these numbers and the elimination of multiple populations. Only one previously flagged population remains identifiable after the storm’s destruction. Ongoing efforts aim to locate the remaining seven populations and compare current observations with annually collected data. In the area that has been identified, we will complete soil temperature and pH tests that we will compare to previous data, also using a light meter to determine if any damage to the forest canopy caused dormant seeds to germinate in exposed sunlight and overtake the Ginseng. If populations are not located, we will analyze the most probable cause for their decline.

Winston-Salem State University
Undergraduate – Senior, Medical Laboratory Science
Author(s): Kayari Harris
Mentor: Rafael Loureiro, Winston-Salem State University

The Application of Microbial Treatments to Enhance the Suitability of Martin Regolith for Crop Cultivation

RHEA (Regolith-derived Hydroponic Extracts for Agriculture) assessed whether bioleaching can convert lunar regolith simulant into nutrient solutions suitable for hydroponic cultivation of leafy greens and fruit-bearing crops while limiting co-mobilization of undesirable species. Batch leaching was conducted using three microbial paradigms and an abiotic comparator: proton/acid leaching with Acidithiobacillus at pH 1.8 followed by neutralization to ~6.1, chelator-mediated leaching using a fungal/heterotroph community at pH ~6.8, redox-mediated leaching using Shewanella at pH ~7.0, and an acid-only control matched to the acidophile pH trajectory. Leachates were analyzed for major cations and anions, total Fe and Fe(II)/Fe, Mn, dissolved Si, phosphate, sulfate, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Across conditions, acidophile-driven leaching produced the strongest bulk mobilization of major nutrients, yielding elevated Ca (338 ± 22), Mg (69 ± 6), and total Fe (134 ± 11), but also substantially increased dissolved Al (70 ± 8), a potential phytotoxicity risk in recirculating hydroponics. The acid-only control approached these macronutrient levels (e.g., Ca 290 ± 18; Al 58 ± 7) but was generally lower, indicating contributions beyond acidity alone. Redox-based leaching maximized redox-sensitive micronutrients, producing the highest total Fe (179 ± 14) and Mn (11.6 ± 1.1) and a high Fe(II)/Fe ratio (0.86 ± 0.05) while maintaining low dissolved Al (4.0 ± 0.7), consistent with a more hydroponically compatible micronutrient profile. Chelator-based leaching provided gentler extraction with minimal Al mobilization (10 ± 2) but generated high DOC (140 ± 18), which may destabilize nutrient solutions through microbial growth or biofouling. These results demonstrate clear tradeoffs among macronutrient recovery, micronutrient speciation, and solution contaminants, and support staged or hybrid processing (e.g., redox extraction for Fe/Mn followed by moderated bulk extraction with Al mitigation) to produce plant-ready regolith-derived hydroponic inputs.

Western Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Luke Kota, Francisco Risso-Hemstreet
Mentor: Shannon Kincaid, Western Piedmont Community College

Study of Tenibrio Molitor Larvae’s Biodegradation of Different Forms of Cellulose Acetate

Mealworms’ ability to biodegrade various plastics with the enzyme in their gut provides a solution to plastic pollution. This study aims to investigate the potential of Tenebrio molitor
(mealworms) larvae to biodegrade cellulose acetate (CA) presented in three common forms: film, mesh, and both cigarette and pipette filters. Cellulose acetate is a widely used plastic known for its environmental persistence, particularly in the form of discarded cigarette filters, which are attached to almost all commercial cigarettes and harm public health and the environment. The negative impact of cigarette filters and pipette filters on our ecosystem is a breakdown of microplastics, releasing toxic chemicals that pollute our earth. While previous research has shown that mealworms can consume and partially degrade synthetic plastics such as polystyrene, their interaction with cellulose acetate in different physical forms remains unexplored. This study will start with examining mealworm feeding behavior, track changes in material mass through simple weighing before and after exposure, and record visible physical changes such as size reduction, discoloration, or fragmentation through direct observation and basic measurements accounting for humidity and temperature. By comparing degradation across the different forms, the research aims to assess how physical structure affects the biodegradation of cellulose acetate and to explore the potential use of mealworms in basic bioremediation efforts.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Undergraduate – Junior, Bioengineering
Author(s): Davon Michael, Misty Thomas
Mentor: Misty Thomas, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Adaptive Evolution of Streptococcus mutans Under Simulated Microgravity Conditions

Long-duration spaceflight exposes microorganisms to unique environmental stressors, including microgravity and reduced fluid shear, which can alter microbial physiology, gene regulation, and pathogenic potential. Understanding how these conditions influence the human microbiome is critical for protecting astronaut health during extended missions. This study investigates the adaptive evolution of Streptococcus mutans, a gram-positive facultative anaerobe and primary contributor to dental caries, under simulated microgravity conditions.

Using a High Aspect Ratio Vessel (HARV) to model reduced gravity, S. mutans populations are experimentally evolved under simulated microgravity and normal gravity control conditions. Cultures are incubated at 37°C with 5% CO2 for 100 days, and serial passaging is performed over extended time periods to allow adaptive mutations to accumulate. Following incubation, isolates from each condition are collected, and genomic DNA is extracted and quantified. Whole-genome sequencing and comparative variant analysis are then used to identify genetic changes associated with long-term growth under simulated microgravity.

This study aims to characterize mutations potentially affecting regulatory pathways, stress responses, and metabolic functions that may enhance bacterial survival in altered gravitational environments. Prior research suggests that microgravity can influence gene expression related to oxidative stress, metabolism, and cellular regulation. Therefore, similar adaptive trends are anticipated in S. mutans. Shared mutations across both gravity conditions may also emerge, reflecting general laboratory adaptation independent of gravity.

The results of this work will provide insight into how microgravity shapes microbial evolution. This may contribute to dysbiosis or increased virulence during spaceflight. These findings have implications for astronaut health, microbial risk assessment, and the development of countermeasures for long-duration missions. More broadly, this research advances understanding of microbial adaptation in extreme environments and supports NASA’s goals in space biology and human exploration.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Biochemistry
Author(s): Blake Horton
Mentor: Colleen Doherty, North Carolina State University

The Impact of Daily Temperature Range in Controlled Environments on Tomato Nutrition and Physiology

As mission durations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) increase and plans to establish a human presence on the Moon and Mars come closer to reality, a sustainable food source becomes a priority. Astronauts currently rely on prepackaged food from Earth, which is not only costly to send but also degrades over time, losing nutritional quality. Plants can supplement this nutritional gap, supplying vitamins with short shelf lives, dietary variety, and reducing the cost of supply shipments.

Currently, the International Space Station utilizes the Vegetable Production System “VEGGIE” for plant growth studies in LEO. Most plant studies conducted in LEO examine the effects of variables such as elevated CO2, radiation, and blue/red light ratios. However, one understudied variable in spaceflight experiments is the Daily Temperature Range (DTR). The DTR is the difference between the minimum and maximum temperatures in each 24h period. This is a critical component of diel cycles on Earth, but spaceflight plant studies often utilize very minimal DTR, or none at all. The DTR plants have acclimated to on Earth is typically 10-15°C. Field studies in crop species have shown that a smaller DTR reduces yield. Therefore, maintaining a more Earth-like DTR may improve long-term plant growth in LEO. However, little is known about the effects on nutritional quality.

To understand how DTR affects plant physiology and nutritional quality, tomatoes were grown in either a Normal DTR of 28°C/20°C, or a Reduced DTR of 28°C/24°C. Photosynthetic parameters, flowering time, and plant mass were measured. Root, leaf, and fruit were collected to assess nutritional effects: sugar, anthocyanin, and vitamins A and C content will be measured. Understanding how DTR in controlled growth environments affects plant nutrition is a key step toward maintaining a sustainable supplemental food source during long-term missions.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Applied Science and Technology (Bioscience focus)
Author(s): Brandon T. Sanders, Misty Thomas
Mentor: Misty Thomas, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Adaptive and Acclimative Responses of S. mutans to Lunar Regolith in Simulated Microgravity

As long-duration space exploration and colonization become tangible realities, understanding microbial adaptation to extraterrestrial environments is increasingly critical for safeguarding human health. Astronauts experience numerous physiological changes under microgravity conditions, including muscle density loss, bone resorption, and increased susceptibility to dental caries. Streptococcus mutans, a biofilm-forming bacterium primarily associated with tooth decay, is predicted to be a major contributor to this risk in response to space-associated stressors. By 2026, NASA’s Artemis program aims to launch lunar missions to orbit and ultimately colonize the Moon. In addition to microgravity, astronauts on these missions will be exposed to lunar regolith (LR), a highly reactive environmental toxin present on the Moon’s surface. This study evaluates the effects of simulated spaceflight conditions on biofilm production, gene expression, and morphology of S. mutans following short-term (1hr) and long-term (3mo) exposure to LR under simulated microgravity (sMG). S. mutans was cultured with LR using High Aspect Rotating Vessels (HARVs) under normal gravity (NG), sMG, and sMG with LR (sMGLR), enabling assessment of both acclimative and evolutionary responses. To characterize molecular adaptations to prolonged exposure, RNA sequencing was performed on populations adapted for 3mo. Differential expression analyses revealed significant changes in genes associated with cell wall structure and maintenance. These findings motivated the use of scanning electron microscopy to determine whether LR exposure induces corresponding structural changes in cell envelope morphology. Together, these analyses examine how lunar environmental stressors drive measurable molecular and structural changes in S. mutans and how adaptation is influenced.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University/JSNN
Graduate – Ph.D., Nanoengineering
Author(s): Anjali Kumari
Mentor: Kristen Dellinger, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University/JSNN

The B.E.A.D. Project: Engineering Scalable Porous Hydrogel Beads to Enhance 3D Cell Culture and Extracellular Vesicle Production

3D cell culture systems are increasingly essential for modeling human physiology in space, where microgravity alters cell behavior, extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions, and extracellular vesicle (EV) production. Scalable, physiologically relevant biomaterials are needed to support long-term 3D culture and enable downstream EV isolation for space health research and biomanufacturing.

Current 3D culture platforms, including rotating wall vessels and scaffold-free spheroids, suffer from poor ECM mimicry, limited scalability, and inadequate control over mass transport. In parallel, conventional EV isolation methods, such as magnetic beads, are costly and may introduce cytotoxicity, limiting their use in sustained microgravity experiments.
Porous hydrogel beads were produced using ionically crosslinked sodium alginate via spray-based gelation into CaCl₂, enabling rapid, low-cost upscaling. Pore size was tuned using composite formulations incorporating gelatin and gas-foaming agents (sodium bicarbonate/acetic acid). Beads were functionalized with fibronectin to enhance cell adhesion and seeded with HEK293T cells as a proof-of-concept model. Bead morphology, porosity, and cell viability were assessed using light and confocal microscopy and AlamarBlue assays. Parallel studies evaluated pore-size-dependent suitability for EV capture.

Spray-fabricated porous hydrogels supported improved cell viability and adhesion compared to scaffold-free spheroids, while offering high surface area and tunable porosity. Larger pores favored 3D cell growth and nutrient diffusion, whereas smaller pores are expected to enhance EV retention and isolation efficiency.

Ongoing work will systematically evaluate how hydrogel rigidity and pore architecture influence cell proliferation, phenotype, and EV yield under simulated and true microgravity. This platform enables integrated 3D culture and EV biomanufacturing, supporting space health monitoring and regenerative applications both in orbit and on Earth.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Biology
Author(s): Theresa D. Jones, Anele, Anuoluwapo O., Patel, Ishan.J., Middleton, Bryce.J., Worrill, Leah M., Joseph-Lainez, Jaquelle A.R., Sanders, Brittany R., Graves Jr., Joseph L., Thomas, Misty D.
Mentor: Misty Thomas, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Beyond Resistance: How cusS Mutations Reshape the Adaptive Landscape in E. coli

Predicting phenotype from genotype can be challenging; and this is in part due to a lack of clarity concerning when regulatory mutations acquire multi-trait effects during adaptation. Bacteria utilize two-component response systems (TCRS) to acclimate to changing environments, yet the role of TCRS in long-term adaptation remains unclear. CusRS is a TCRS found in gram negative bacteria that responds to copper and silver in the environment, with the cusS histidine kinase as a periplasmic sensor domain. This study investigated the role of pleiotropy in the adaptive mechanisms of engineered cusS single mutants, and experimentally evolved silver-resistant strains of Escherichia coli. Results show that single mutants remain transcriptionally constrained and exhibit narrow or globally reduced performance across varied metabolic and stress conditions. In contrast, the experimentally evolved strains accumulate additional mutations in global regulators (rho, ompR, cyaA, fur) that expand regulatory capabilities, enabling coordinated activation of carbon, nitrogen, and stress-response pathways. This establishes a mechanistic basis for pleiotropy, where it is not solely an intrinsic property of an individual mutation, but an emergent property of the regulatory network once rewiring surpasses a threshold. These findings reframe pleiotropy as a state-dependent outcome of regulatory network changes, resolving when observed adaptive mutations can be predictive of a phenotype.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Undergraduate – Senior, Biology
Author(s): Jacquelle Joseph-Lainez, Arrington Ashford, Leah Worrell, Misty Thomas
Mentor: Misty Thomas, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Investigating Evolutionary Responses of E. coli to Triangular Silver Nanoplates

Silver has long been used for its antimicrobial properties, and silver nanoparticles are effective antimicrobial agents shown to kill both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, making them promising for healthcare use, particularly against ESKAPEE pathogens. However, Escherichia coli (E. coli) can develop resistance after repeated exposure, reducing their effectiveness. Currently, there is a lack of materials that are evolution-proof. This study aims to determine if E. coli can develop resistance to triangular silver nanoplates and identify the mechanism involved. Triangular silver nanoplates, with their distinctive sharp edges, may improve antibacterial potency by enhancing penetration of the cell membrane through both physical and chemical effects of the cell, including nanoparticle shape and silver composition, potentially making them evolution-proof. The ancestral strain used was E. coli K-12 MG1655, which does not carry known silver resistance genes. Experimental evolution was conducted over 21 days by subculturing E. coli every 24 hours at the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of triangular silver nanoplates.Results showed that evolved E. coli populations did not exhibit growth at 106 µg/mL or 125 µg/mL following the 21-day experiment, whereas the ancestral strain displayed growth at both concentrations, though further testing was limited due to discontinuation of nanoplates. Future directions include examining resistance development across different nanoplate shapes and exploring how these findings may extend to other ESKAPEE pathogens.

The Middle College at UNC Greensboro
Author(s): Ibrahim Shahid
Mentor: Abdullah Shahid, North Carolina State University

Age-Dependent Transcriptomic Network Rewiring in Mouse Kidney Post Spaceflight

Astronauts exhibit elevated nephrolithiasis risk post spaceflight, with 1 year post flight rates reported as 2–7x more than pre flight estimates. Prior works link spaceflight to distal nephron and transporter dysregulation, raising inquiry on whether microgravity alters regulatory coordination among genes mechanistically responsible for distal convoluted tubule ion transport, specifically the NCC-WNK axis, beyond mean expression changes, and if this differs by age and sampling timepoint. We analyzed OSD-771 (RRRM-2) bulk kidney RNA-seq from 80 female C57BL/6NTac mice under a 2×4×2 design (Age × Environment × arm: ISS-T vs LAR). To mitigate bulk tissue confounding, nephron segment proportions via single-cell reference deconvolution were estimated, and adjusted for with respect to compositional and technical structure while preserving biological contrasts. To test coordination shifts, sample-specific co-expression networks were inferred on a shared space sparse edge backbone standardized within experimental design cells, enabling comparable rewiring estimates across all conditions. Edge-wise models were then fit on the full 2×4×2 design to quantify flight effects within age and arm strata and to test age*flight interactions, resulting in model-based contrast specific networks. These networks are further embedded and aligned to derive gene-level rewiring scores for each biological contrast. Genes showing large network context shifts, but minimal changes in mean expression are identified as “silent shifters”, and represent candidate regulatory drivers of DCT remodeling. This framework provides estimates of age-dependent spaceflight networking rewiring, isolating perturbations in the NCC-WNK pathway to guide precise countermeasure development for post-flight renal dysfunction.

Wake Forest University
Graduate – Ph.D., Plant Molecular Biology
Author(s): Nathan J. Pfeffer, Gloria K. Muday
Mentor: Gloria K. Muday, Wake Forest University

The Role of Reactive Oxygen Species Signaling in Plant Gravitropism and Root Hair Growth

Spaceflight exerts unique stresses on plants, many of which trigger production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). Increased exposure to ionizing radiation causes the decomposition of water into ROS, including hydroxyl radicals and hydrogen peroxide. Additionally, the confined nature of a flight vessel allows for excessive buildup of the gaseous plant hormone ethylene, which increases enzymatic ROS generation. Appealing solutions to this elevated ROS in plant tissues includes propagation of plants with elevated antioxidants or reduced levels of ROS-producing enzymes. However, there is a delicate balance of cellular ROS: too little ROS leads to impaired signaling, while too much ROS causes oxidative stress. We have found that ethylene and its biochemical precursor, ACC, increased ROS accumulation in the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana, driving formation of root hairs and inhibiting root gravitropism. In contrast, VAS2870, a specific inhibitor of NADPH oxidase, prevented the ethylene-increased ROS production and root hair formation, and completely disrupted root gravitropism. Ongoing experiments with confocal microscopy and genetic reporters are investigating the link between Ca2+ and ROS signaling at the tip of root hairs and regions of root gravitropic bending. The mechanism by which ethylene stimulates a feedforward loop between these two small signaling molecules is not well understood, but imperative for root development. Oxidation of protein cysteine residues is a form of post-translational modification which can alter structure, and therefore activity, of enzymes. Using redox proteomics, we are working to identify enzymes which are oxidized following ethylene treatment. We have identified putative targets of cysteine oxidation involved in root development processes such as root hair growth and root gravitropism, and are working to uncover the effects of this oxidative modification on enzyme activity. This research deepens our understanding of the consequences of ROS imbalance in living tissues, and supports the development of strategies for space based-agriculture.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Undergraduate – Freshman, Biology
Author(s): Sally Lee, Rafael R Loureiro, Beatriz Fontoura
Mentor: Rafael Loureiro (Winston-Salem State University), Beatriz Fontoura

Rooted in Trouble: Mycorrhizal Fungus Enhances Uptake of Heavy Metals in Regolith-Grown Tomatoes

Regolith-based agriculture (RBA) exhibits significant differences from terrestrial environments, including high heavy metal content, chemical composition, and water retention. This study examines between the physiological and chemical aspects of specimens grown in the four different treatments [Soil+Fungi; Soil+Control; Regolith+Fungi; Regolith+Control] through ICP-OES and ICP-MS elemental analysis, and evaluate if either fungi ammendment has a direct influence in nutrient (e.g. nitrogen, phosphorus) levels in plant tissue, as well as heavy metals (e.g., aluminum, titanium) found in the regolith (LMS-1).

Tomato samples of the Tiny-Tim variant were cultivated for 60 days under controlled conditions. Stem and root tissue were separated and freeze-dried (≈ 24 hours), and digested with 2 mL of concentrated HNO3, 3 mL of 30% v/v H2O2, and 5 mL of ultrapure water at 200 °C in an Ethos Up microwave system. 5110 ICP-OES and 8800 ICP-MS instruments (Agilent Technologies) were used for elemental analysis. Leaves cultivated in soil (5569 ± 202 mg/kg) had higher P concentration than those in regolith (4576 ± 480 mg/kg), regardless of the presence of fungi.

In contrast, the presence of fungi caused a concentration increase of more than 4-fold in Al, Fe, Mn, and Ti in the regolith of tomato leaves. As expected, these metals accumulated preferentially in the roots as a plant defense mechanism to prevent damage to leaves and foliage. Al, considered a toxic and growth-limiting element for plants, had concentrations ranging from 450 to 2138 mg/kg and 23 to 1803 mg/kg for roots and leaves, respectively, with the highest values observed for cultivation in regolith in the presence of fungi.

This study highlights the challenges and potential of growing food in RBA systems. Fungal additives helped improve nutrient uptake; they also led to a significant increase in heavy metal absorption, particularly in plants grown in regolith.

Central Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Dennisse Farias Gonzalez, Amaiya Lipscomb, Bawi Thawng, Tendaishe Mhonda, Abenezer Tesfaye
Mentor: Quillie Hunt, Central Piedmont Community College

D.A.V.E: Directional Assistance for Virtual Engagement

Central Piedmont Community College is a large, multicampus institution in which campus directories and signs may be difficult to understand or outdated, thus creating barriers for students, college employees, and guests attempting to locate a specific destination. This can cause additional anxiety or stress for individuals, especially international students who are not only adapting to a new campus but also to another country as well. Our research attempts to solve these issues and proposes a solution to create an interactive kiosk system named Directional Assistance For Virtual Engagement (D.A.V.E.). According to data gathered via surveys and observation at CPCC, nearly three-quarters of respondents indicated that they experienced issues locating their destination on campus during initial arrival and at other times. D.A.V.E. is an interactive kiosk system, offering real-time campus facilities and directional services using touch screen hardware, network computer equipment, and specialized software. D.A.V.E. also has step-by-step descriptions of classrooms, offices, and events, as well as multilingual support, visual/audio accessibility, and an animated interface, making it user-friendly. Using the available kiosks can serve as a low-cost and scalable approach to enhance accessibility, decrease traffic jams, and improve the general campus experience of students, college employees, and guests.

Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute
Author(s): Matthew Frazier
Mentor: Lucas McGuire, Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute

Bridging Accessibility Gaps: Laying the Groundwork for Dynamic Graph Accessibility

Can a low-cost, dynamically controlled tactile graphing device be developed to make arbitrary mathematical functions more accessible to blind and visually impaired students in STEM courses? Traditional tactile graphs are static and pre-embossed in textbooks, limiting their usefulness when students must analyze new or dynamically generated functions in class or professional settings. Our goal is to design a system capable of rendering arbitrary graphs in real time.

To investigate this question, we are developing a proof-of-concept prototype using a Raspberry Pi 400 as the central controller. Mathematical functions are generated in Python using Matplotlib, scaled to a discrete grid, and converted into a matrix representation suitable for physical actuation. Because constructing a full tactile piston array is beyond the current budget and time constraints of this project, we are prototyping with an LED matrix that represents individual “”tactile pixels.”” The LED matrix functions as a software-equivalent stand-in for a future solenoid-driven pin matrix. Axis labels are presently displayed using character LCD modules, with a third LCD providing coordinate feedback; in a fully realized tactile system, these displays would be replaced with refreshable Braille modules to deliver accessible axis labeling and numerical information. The software architecture is intentionally modular so that the LED matrix could later be replaced with a solenoid matrix driven by appropriate integrated circuits, without requiring substantial modification to the control logic.

At the time of submission, hardware components for the LED/LCD prototype are not yet available, and therefore no user testing data have been collected. However, the software pipeline for function sampling, scaling, interpolation, and matrix mapping has been designed and is currently being implemented. Early development confirms that arbitrary functions can be translated into discrete grid representations suitable for future tactile actuation. This work establishes the theoretical and architectural foundation for a scalable system intended to support dynamic tactile graph accessibility in mathematics education and technical fields.

North Carolina State University
Recent Graduate, Computer Science
Author(s): James Deucher, Shane Moxley, Leonard Lopes
Mentor: Leonard Lopes, NASA Langley Research Center

Human Enabled Learning & Evaluation Network for Assistants (HELENA)

NASA creates many software projects, some of which grow to be used by external companies and researchers. As these projects grow there comes the added pressure to maintain knowledge of the code for future professionals and onboarding new users. To assist in capturing this information we developed the Human Enabled Learning & Evaluation Network (HELENA). This system allows experts to store their knowledge and train custom language models for retrieval and extrapolation. HELENA assistants are designed to work fully on local hardware. This ensures the security of proprietary information belonging to NASA or user organizations.

HELENA is composed of a few major parts. It contains a program that uses NASA’s computing cluster to train a language model, a database that tracks project data and questions, and a website that allows users to run trained models and contribute to new iterations. Training new models is done semi-automatically as HELENA prompts experts with a few daily questions to improve knowledge. This has the added benefit of improving the base documentation for the software projects involved.

Currently there are three assistant models being trained and hosted with the expectation that more will be added soon. The project currently has a database of over 60 thousand points. This is used to store the expert knowledge for future workers or new users. The goal of HELENA being to extend the lifetime of software knowledge, our hope is to see the number of models and users grow as we improve knowledge retention and reduce onboarding for NASA software.

Central Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Noah Ellenbogen, Uyen Le, Precious Bikusa, Kebron Mamo
Mentor: Hisham Abdel-Aal, Central Piedmont Community College

Open Space

A common problem encountered in public educational institutions is limited accessibility to parking facilities, particularly during peak campus hours. At Central Piedmont Community College, students, faculty, and visitors often waste valuable time searching for available parking spaces, resulting in traffic congestion, delays, and increased stress. This work details a preliminary attempt to address this persistent issue through the development of a centralized digital platform labeled OpenSpace.

OpenSpace is a student-developed parking monitoring system designed to provide real-time, location-based information on parking availability across campus. The system integrates campus maps, parking status indicators, sensor-based data collection, and user-reported updates to deliver real-time parking information. It allows users to assess parking availability prior to arrival or while navigating parking areas, thereby enabling more informed parking decisions. A prototype implementation utilizes an ultrasonic sensor in conjunction with an ESP32 microcontroller to detect vehicles entering and exiting a parking area. Collected data are transmitted to a centralized platform and displayed through a web-based or mobile interface.

The purpose of this project is to examine whether consolidating parking availability information into a single interface can reduce unnecessary vehicle circulation in parking areas that are near or at full capacity. Planned experimental testing will evaluate system reliability by measuring detection accuracy and identifying false positive and false negative rates under realistic traffic conditions. Findings from this phase will help determine the feasibility of expanding the system across multiple parking decks and enhancing future occupancy monitoring. By applying mobile technology to a daily campus commuting challenge, the OpenSpace application, though developed for Central Piedmont Community College, highlights the potential of innovative digital solutions to improve campus infrastructure efficiency and offers potential for application in other locations.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Senior, Aerospace Engineering
Author(s): Varun Surti
Mentor: Chad Brown, Spaceport Chief Strategist, NASA Kennedy Space Center

Probabilistic Forecasting of Launch Activity at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

Accurately forecasting future launch activity is a critical challenge for spaceport planning, as uncertainty in mission schedules makes it difficult to anticipate infrastructure, power, and commodity demands. This project addresses the question: how can probabilistic modeling be used to improve long-term launch manifest and resource forecasting for a major spaceport?

During an internship at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, I developed a Monte Carlo–based launch manifest forecasting tool as part of the Spaceport digital twin effort. The tool simulates five years of future launch activity by combining historical launch cadence, infrastructure capacity constraints, and emerging commercial launch trends. Thousands of randomized scenarios are generated to capture uncertainty in mission readiness, vehicle selection, pad usage, and launch timing. The simulation outputs are aggregated into probabilistic forecasts of launch frequency, resource usage, and potential operational bottlenecks, which are visualized through an interactive dashboard for mission planners.

When validated against historical launch data, the tool achieved approximately 90 percent accuracy in reproducing known launch patterns and infrastructure utilization. The results demonstrated that stochastic simulation can provide more reliable long-range forecasts than deterministic planning approaches, particularly in an increasingly commercialized and variable launch environment. The tool is now used by Kennedy Space Center planners to identify future constraints, improve launch readiness, and support infrastructure planning decisions.
This project highlights how computational statistics and aerospace engineering can be combined to solve real operational problems, and it illustrates the value of probabilistic modeling for decision-making in complex, uncertain systems such as modern spaceports.

Wake Technical Community College/ NC State University Undergraduate – Computer and Electrical Engineering
Author(s): Nolan Smeal
Mentor: Carolyn Hoffman, Wake Technical CommunityCollege

Testing 3D-Printed Chevrons with an Arduino Sound Meter

Inspired by AeroEducate’s Quiet the Skies activity, this project asks: Can chevron-shaped nozzle structures measurably reduce noise, and can an Arduino-based sensor system reliably detect that change? To extend the original acoustics challenge into electrical engineering, I designed and built a custom decibel meter using an Arduino Uno, a sound sensor module, a breadboarded circuit, and an LCD display. The Arduino program (written in a modified version of C++) continuously sampled the sensor’s analog signal, applied signal averaging to stabilize readings, and displayed both a numeric sound level and a low/medium/high intensity category in real time.

On the mechanical design side, I created and tested two chevron models: one designed in SolidWorks and 3D-printed, and a second design obtained from an online source. Using a controlled noise source, I recorded sound levels at distances from 0.05 to 0.30 meters in 0.05-meter increments, both with and without a chevron casing, to generate comparative data visualizations for each design.

Results showed that the chevron nozzle configuration produced a slight but consistent reduction in measured sound compared to a standard nozzle. These findings support the conclusion that geometry can influence acoustic performance, likely by smoothing flow and reducing turbulence-related noise—even at a small prototype scale. Future work includes improving sensor calibration, testing additional chevron patterns, and evaluating different sound types to better characterize noise-reduction performance.

Durham Technical Community College
Author(s): Angelina Singotiko
Mentor: Patrick Coin, Durham Technical Community College

Identification of North Carolina Arachnids with Computer Vision and Microscopic Characters

This project compares various identification methods for Arachnids (spiders and relatives). Accurate identification is important for supporting conservation initiatives. In North Carolina there are more than 800 recorded Arachnid species, and identification is not always straightforward. We compare traditional identification methods with computer vision results obtained via Citizen Science resources. Computer vision systems perform well at order and family levels but are subject to more uncertainty at genus and species levels. Ongoing work will validate these results with additional microscopic examination as well as DNA barcoding.

Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute
Author(s): Benjamin Faulkner
Mentor: Denise Williams, Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute

Purification of Appalachian River Water Through Electrocoagulation

Electrolysis is the process of using direct electric current to drive a chemical reaction. Electrocoagulation is an electrolytic process that uses the formation of metal hydroxide floccules to capture and remove turbidity from drinking water. Turbidity is a measure of the cloudiness of water; this can be caused by pollutants such as silt, clay, algae, organic matter, or other microorganisms. During the process of electrocoagulation, a sacrificial anode made of pure metal will be oxidized through exposure to ten volts of DC current in an electrolytic solution. Different metals form varying hydroxide matrices; this leads to a difference in water purification efficacy based on the metal used. The efficacy of tin, zinc, aluminum, copper, and cobalt will be gravimetrically analyzed by collecting the flocculant, dehydrating the sample, and then comparing the mass of the sample to the mass sacrificed from the anode. The difference between the mass sacrificed by the anode and the mass of the flocculant will determine how much turbidity was removed from the water. The mass of turbidity removed by each metal will be analyzed and compared to determine the best metal for the application of removing turbidity from Appalachian river water.

Forsyth Technical Community College
Author(s): Atef Aboukhozaim, Enijah Linville, Cameron Roberts
Mentors: Tendeka Boko, Jason Gagilano, Zuania Pacheco Del Rio, Alex Aragon – Forsyth Technical Community College

Space Fashion: Developing Protocol and Detailed Analysis for The Next Generation Spacesuit Fabric Durability Against Lunar Highlands Dust Stimulant

Can we survive on the Moon? Yes, but we need the right tools. One of the survival tools is a spacesuit. Prior spacesuits experienced tears and had to be replaced even before launch. We aim to determine if some of the more recently proposed fabric layers within a spacesuit can withstand the sharp, harsh abrasive conditions of regolith (moon soil) ripping fabric and contaminating skin, airways and instruments. Our tested fabrics are mylar sheets, Rip-stop, and nylon tricot. We use Lunar Highlands Dust Simulant (LHS-1D) to simulate moon soil. LHS-1D exhibits extreme abrasiveness due to its angular morphology, high surface reactivity, and chemically active defect sites formed through micrometeoroid impacts and solar wind exposure. Chemical and physical characteristics of LHS-1D simulant are like moon soil, so it is effective for experimental research analyses. By utilizing the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to evaluate fabric damage after each tumbling cycle abrasion test, we can demonstrate and evaluate wear and tear on the fabric type samples. While mechanical abrasion testing has been quantified by macroscopic degradation in candidate extravehicular activity (EVA) fabrics, the underlying chemical interactions that initiate filament weakening remain poorly understood. Identifying these mechanisms at the molecular level is essential for designing next generation materials capable of resisting long duration lunar surface exposure. The goal of this research is the development of a protocol to test spacesuit effectiveness against lunar dust. With our evaluations using NASA documents to guide research principles and provide information on materials, we can determine possible alternatives to traditional fabrication methods for a more protective spacesuit.

Central Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Jha’Zia Flood, Yasmine Pena, Meyer Miller, Hoomon Nikoei, Paul Josue, Acka Diama
Mentor: Heather Song, Central Piedmont Community College

Glow Go

GlowGo is an innovative smart crosswalk system designed to enhance safety and traffic flow on busy campuses like CPCC, addressing dangerous pedestrian-vehicle interactions and driver frustration. Utilizing advanced sensors, GlowGo intelligently detects vehicle and pedestrian activity, along with LEDS, to optimize crosswalk signal timing in real-time. This STEM-integrated solution incorporates engineering for circuits, solar energy for sustainable operation, and IT for data collection, with math crucial for sensor calibration. Despite challenges like calibration and power management, GlowGo promises significantly improved pedestrian safety, reduced driver frustration, a renewable-powered infrastructure, and valuable data for future smart-campus planning.

Wake Technical Community College
Author(s): Elizabeth Hobson
Mentor: Melinda Gibbs, Wake Technical Community College

Investigating Pollution Impacts on Riparian Vegetation at Wake Tech Southern Campus

Riparian areas, which are vegetated zones along streams, play a critical role in filtering pollution, preventing erosion, and supporting biodiversity. However, increasing urban development can disrupt these ecosystems. This project asked: How does human disturbance and pollution affect plant health and community composition in riparian zones at Wake Technical Community College’s Southern Campus? To explore this question, vegetation was surveyed at three sites representing different disturbance levels: a developed corridor (high impact), a mixed-use riparian area (moderate impact), and a forested reference site (low impact). At each location, 1 m² quadrats were used to measure plant species richness, percent cover, and signs of stress. Aboveground biomass samples were collected, dried, and converted to grams per square meter to estimate productivity. Soil and water samples were also analyzed for basic pollution indicators, and plant community differences were compared using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS).

Results showed clear differences across the disturbance gradient. The mixed-use riparian site had the highest biomass (1.43 g/m²), while the developed corridor had the lowest (0.12 g/m²), indicating reduced productivity in highly impacted areas. Plant communities differed significantly between sites, with disturbed areas dominated by hardy, disturbance-tolerant species such as Kyllinga brevifolia, Eupatorium capillifolium, and Paspalum dilatatum. These findings suggest that increased human activity and pollution favor weedy, resilient plants while reducing overall ecosystem health. Overall, the study demonstrates that urban disturbance negatively affects riparian vegetation structure and productivity. Strengthening restoration and management strategies in urban riparian zones can help protect water quality and biodiversity in these essential ecosystems.

Wake Technical Community College
Author(s): David Abraham
Mentor: Carrie Hoffman, Wake Technical Community College

Stormwater Hydraulics: Flood-Proofing NC Roads

Severe storm events can overwhelm roadway drainage systems, leading to flooding and damage to transportation infrastructure. To reduce this risk, the NCDOT Hydraulics Unit evaluates drainage areas, flow paths, and stormwater capacity to determine whether existing pipes can safely convey design storms. This project examines the process of assessing an existing hydraulic structure on SR 2052 in Wake County, NC and developing a proposed upgrade when capacity is insufficient.

The study first delineated the contributing watershed using StreamStats, identifying a drainage area of 0.11 mi² with 32.5% impervious surface. Urban peak-flow discharge for a 25-year storm was calculated using the 2014 regression equations, producing a design flow of 139 cubic feet per second (cfs). The FHWA Hydraulic Toolbox was used to compute a tailwater depth of 1.5 ft, while HSD-5 nomograms provided additional hydraulic characteristics including headwater, entrance loss, flow type, and water depth. These values were compiled into a Pipe Data Sheet, the standard NCDOT deliverable used to evaluate replacement options.
Results indicated that the existing pipe lacked adequate capacity and could overflow or fail during major storm events. The proposed upgraded structure is designed to convey approximately 138 cfs, meeting NCDOT safety and performance standards. This analysis demonstrates how systematic hydraulic evaluation guides infrastructure decisions that protect roadways and surrounding communities. Regular assessment and replacement of undersized drainage structures are essential for improving resilience to increasingly intense rainfall and ensuring long-term transportation safety.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Masters, Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences
Author(s): Kevin Melendez
Mentor: Zhiming Yang, North Carolina Central University

Synthetic Aperture Radar Assessment of Hurricane Helene Impact Across North Carolina’s Tin–Spodumene Belt

The United States Geological Survey lists lithium as a critical mineral, stated by it being an “essential to the economic or national security of the United States; have a supply chain that is vulnerable to disruption; and serve an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the economic or national security of the U.S..” Lithium is a desired mineral for its utilization in the realm of clean energy. In the state of North Carolina, lies an area of land known as the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt. It houses spodumene which is a lithium aluminum silicate. This area of land holds the largest lithium deposit in NC, making it highly sought and desirable area of land. With changes to the climate, increases in natural disasters and extreme weather events are expected and may potentially jeopardize accessibility to lithium as well potentially causing safety concerns and well being of local residents in the surrounding vicinity. Although the events of Hurricane Helene in 2024 did not directly make contact with this region of North Carolina, Helene’s extreme rainfall, flooding, and landslides did influence disturbances across the state. With the utilization of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)–based assessment of storm and flood related surface changes within and adjacent to North Carolina’s Tin–Spodumene Belt, this study aims to assess flood affected areas, land deformation, as well as impacts on lithium deposits/mining related activities that may have transpired from the events of Hurricane Helene. With these assessments made with SARS, spatial areas of affected zones have been mapped to showcase areas impacted by flooding and land deformation. Severe natural disasters pose challenges for NC lithium resource utilization and the combination with mining related activities may exacerbate local health and environmental conditions.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Ph.D., Integrated Biosciences – Data Sciences
Author(s): Tony B. Esimaje
Mentor: Zhiming Yang, North Carolina Central University

L-Band Polarimetric SAR Decomposition for Flood Vulnerability Assessment: Freeman-Durden Surface Scattering Analysis in Western North Carolina

Accurate flood vulnerability mapping in mountainous terrain requires advanced remote sensing techniques capable of detecting inundation across complex vegetation and topography. This research presents a novel application of Freeman-Durden polarimetric decomposition on UAVSAR L-band data to isolate surface, double-bounce, and volume scattering components for flood detection in McDowell County, North Carolina. Traditional optical and single-polarization SAR systems cannot differentiate these scattering mechanisms, limiting their ability to characterize flooded vegetation and waterlogged soil conditions.

Freeman-Durden decomposition explicitly separates the coherent scattering response into three physically meaningful components, each sensitive to surface moisture and inundation. Surface scattering components exhibit enhanced sensitivity to water-surface interaction and saturated soil conditions, while double-bounce returns reliably indicate specular water-ground reflections characteristic of inundated areas. Volume scattering contributions provide critical discrimination between vegetated non-flooded zones and flooded vegetation, enabling multi-layer inundation characterization unavailable through conventional intensity-based approaches.
Preliminary results demonstrate that Freeman-Durden decomposed components effectively isolate flooded pixels with superior spatial resolution, substantially outperforming traditional SAR backscatter thresholds. This polarimetric approach offers improved interpretability and accuracy for flood risk assessment in complex mountainous watersheds, supporting enhanced disaster management and emergency response planning.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Ph.D. Integrated Biosciences
Author(s): Chima Okoli, Timothy Mulrooney, Phillip Marcelle, Wilbert Fletcher
Mentor: Timothy Mulrooney, North Carolina Central University

Measuring Positional Accuracy Using Various GPS/GNSS Collection Units as Applied to Trail Mapping: A Case Study in North Carolina

GPS (Global Positioning System) and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) are critical technologies in trail mapping, especially for outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and trail maintenance. Not only do they provide accurate and precise locational information in both the horizonal and vertical dimensions, from this information data related to distance, perimeter and volume can be easily calculated or extracted within the confines of a GIS (Geographic Information System). These calculations are useful, among other things, in the real-world application of trail markers placed at distance intervals that serve as rescue markers (Hassell, 2025; Jones, 2019).

The industry is replete with applications such as AllTrails, Gaia GPS, and Avenza which serve as critical aids to hikers and recreation enthusiasts, and the collection of in-situ and real-time trail data is readily available to anyone who owns a smartphone, although higher quality options do exist which come at a price. Furthermore, the collection of precise and accurate vertical elevation data collected in sync with its 2-dimensional horizontal counterparts serve as the cornerstone for elevation profiles which provide insights into viewshed, slope and aspect analysis.

With advances in technology, even remote methods can be utilized to collect somewhat accurate trail data using methods such as image extraction or digitizing. However, little work has explored the quality and variability of the actual GPS/GNSS data collected from these units used to represent trails and how they vary from collection unit to collection unit, network to network and even collection date and time to collection date and time. Using GPS/GNSS data from various data collection units taken at the same time for a popular hiking trail in Hillsborough, North Carolina, this study will 1) Explore the differences in length, elevation and relief from these different collection units and 2) Quantitatively compare them to baseline data high-quality GPS unit.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Masters, Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences
Author(s): Ellandra Howell
Mentor: Timothy Mulrooney, North Carolina Central University

Geospatial Analysis of Early Voting In Texas Elections

The state of Texas has a lot of recent history within its elections and redistricting in the past year that should be explored geospatially. The research trying to be understood is how the March 3rd, 2020, Democratic and Republican Primaries can be spatially analyzed between different geoprocessing tools on ArcGIS Pro. When using geoprocessing tools, formatting becomes the first thing that should be done as it will not be the same among the tools. The ability to use data from many themes that can create easy to interpret maps that can potentially become interactive for the public is very important. The study can show what is the best method to display and determine a correct tool for this particular dataset that can be used amongst many subjects.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Masters, Environmental, Earth, and Geospatial Science
Author(s): Barron Allison, Zhiming Yang
Mentor: Zhiming Yang, North Carolina Central University

Using Sentinel-1 SAR to Map Flood Inundation During the July 2025 Triangle Flood Event

Flooding is one of the most impactful natural hazards in North Carolina, often occurring during severe weather conditions that limit the use of traditional optical satellite imagery due to cloud cover. In July 2025, a major flooding event affected the Triangle region, resulting in road closures, evacuations, and emergency water rescues. This project examined the use of satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to map flood extent associated with this event.

The central research question guiding this study was: Can SAR satellite imagery be used to identify and map floodwater on land during a major flooding event in the Triangle region of North Carolina? To address this question, Sentinel-1 SAR imagery collected during the July 2025 flood was analyzed using ArcGIS Pro. A water extraction workflow incorporating a pretrained deep learning model was applied to detect surface water from radar imagery. Existing North Carolina water body datasets were used to remove permanent water features, such as rivers and lakes, in order to isolate floodwater occurring outside of normal channels.
The extracted flood extent was converted into spatial features to examine the spatial distribution and estimated area of inundation. Where available, the derived flood map was compared with publicly available flood extent maps produced during the same event to assess overall agreement and identify potential sources of uncertainty.

This study demonstrates the utility of Earth-observing radar satellites for flood mapping in cloud-covered conditions and highlights the value of space-based data for supporting disaster response and resilience planning efforts in North Carolina.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Masters, Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences
Author(s): Daniel Nduka
Mentor: Timothy Mulrooney, North Carolina Central University

Deeper Than the Commute: Explorative Analysis of Multivariate PM 2.5 Factors in Urban North Carolina.

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has long posed serious risks to human health, with extensive medical literature identifying it as a leading contributor to respiratory disease and premature mortality. Among its many sources, automobile traffic remains one of the most studied and consistently high contributors to atmospheric PM2.5 concentrations. The COVID-19 pandemic created a rare natural experiment, offering a unique opportunity to examine how abrupt changes in human mobility affected air quality.

This study examined the relationship between traffic volume and PM2.5 variability across North Carolina during the pre- and post-pandemic periods. It hypothesized that (1) traffic volume and PM2.5 concentrations decreased during the 2020 quarantine period, and (2) reductions in PM2.5 emissions were largely driven by disruptions to routine, movement-dependent human activities. Initial findings indicate that traffic volume alone explains only a modest portion of PM2.5 variability, accounting for approximately 2% across both periods, suggesting the influence of additional factors.

Geospatial hotspot analyses of traffic volume and PM2.5 concentrations revealed clusters of cold spots across regions including the Triad, the Triangle, Southwestern, and Southcentral North Carolina. Additional spatial patterns emerged through PM2.5 interpolation using the Inverse Distance Weighting method in ArcGIS Pro. Raster differencing between 2019 and 2020 identified notable declines in PM2.5 concentrations in Mecklenburg, Wake, and Northampton counties, while increases were observed in southern coastal areas, including Pender and New Hanover counties near Wilmington.

Building on these findings, the proposed study aims to develop a multivariate, geospatially explicit PM2.5 model integrating atmospheric dynamics, land use, industrial proximity, and satellite-derived aerosol indicators. NOAA ground-based observations, NCDOT traffic data, and remote-sensing products will be combined to support descriptive and predictive analyses across selected urban and peri-urban regions.

North Carolina Central University
Graduate – Ph.D., Integrated Biosciences – Data Sciences
Author(s): Tony B. Esimaje
Mentor: Zhiming Yang, North Carolina Central University

Polarimetric SAR Decomposition and Machine Learning for High-Resolution Flood Vulnerability Mapping in McDowell County, North Carolina

Accurate and timely flood vulnerability assessment is critical for disaster risk management in mountainous regions susceptible to flash flooding and riverine inundation. This research presents a novel methodology integrating L-band polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) data with Freeman-Durden decomposition techniques and random forest machine learning within ArcGIS Pro to develop a data-driven Composite Flood Vulnerability Index (CFVI) for McDowell County, western North Carolina. The study advances polarimetric decomposition-based flood detection by explicitly isolating surface, double-bounce, and volume scattering components to distinguish flooded from non-flooded vegetation, a capability that C-band optical sensors and single-pol SAR systems cannot achieve. Freeman-Durden decomposed parameters are integrated with topographic predictors including Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND), slope, and flow accumulation derived from a 10-meter DEM via hydrological preprocessing in ArcGIS Pro’s Spatial Analyst toolset. Additional environmental layers including soil infiltration groups from SSURGO, impervious surface fractions from NLCD, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and normalized difference water index (NDWI) from Sentinel-2 are incorporated as feature inputs to the random forest classifier. The RF model is trained using binary flood/non-flood labels derived from NOAA post-event aerial imagery and historical FEMA flood polygons, with hyperparameter tuning via nested cross-validation. Model validation is performed using a withheld test set and compared against independent ground-truth datasets including field-collected drone imagery from post-hurricane site surveys and DEM-derived hydrological layers that constrain physically plausible inundation zones. Results demonstrate that Random Forest achieves ≥87% overall accuracy, substantially outperforming Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbor, and Maximum Likelihood Classification approaches. The CFVI output is a continuous probabilistic vulnerability surface (0–1 scale) that identifies high-risk areas merging topographic, hydrologic, and radar-observable flood processes.

North Carolina State University
Author(s): John Gillespie, Will Sonis, Cora Dally
Mentor: James Ainsworth, Vice President of Engineering, Collier Aerospace

Collier Aerospace Structures Internship

Over the summer, our intern team at Collier Aerospace worked on software development and customer support projects. Our main job was building Python automation tools that help customers with their stress engineering analyses, as well as maintaining current tools and squashing bugs. These tools cut down on the time engineers spend doing calculations by hand, making their workflows more efficient.

We also spent much time working with HyperX, which is Collier Aerospace’s structures engineering optimization software. We built new tools with Python and cleaned up older ones to add more functionality. The tools we created extended HyperX’s existing functionality and give customers more ways to handle and automate their engineering tasks.

A big part of the internship was helping customers directly with technical issues. We met with clients online to solve bugs, show them how to use the tools, and get their feedback on what features they need. This helped us understand what engineers deal with and what they are looking for during their analyses. It also allowed us to practice our communication of technical details and solving problems as a group.

Working together as a group meant we could tackle different projects at once and learn from each other. The internship gave us real experience writing code, building automation tools, maintaining software, and working with customers in aerospace. The tools we built are being used by Collier Aerospace’s customers today.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Alan Swavely
Mentor: Sajjad Bigham, North Carolina State University

3D-Printed Sabatier Reactors for Closing the Loop in Human Space Exploration

In an effort to close the CO2 management loop in extraterrestrial life support systems, a catalytic reaction known as the Sabatier reaction can be employed. This reaction converts carbon dioxide and diatomic hydrogen into methane and water in the presence of a metallic catalyst. In this study, novel, nature-inspired lattice geometries are explored. These lattices are based around a gyroid unit cell to improve mixing and offer higher conversion efficiency while maintaining a low pressure drop through the system. A manufacturing protocol is defined for the use of Digital Light Processing (DLP) 3D printing to produce complex geometries in alumina-doped photosensitive resin. The green ceramic lattices are then heat-treated to remove the organ binder (i.e., resin) and partially sinter the alumina particles into a pure ceramic monolith. Partial sintering maintains microporosity in the solid structure to increase specific surface area. Finally, a nickel-ceria catalyst is coated onto finished support lattices to facilitate the CO2 methanation reaction.

Duke University
Graduate – Masters, Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Nohemi Sepulveda, Dr. Michael T. Hughes, Dr. Matthew Bryant
Mentor: Siobhan Oca, Duke University

Early Detection of Space Motion Sickness Using a Wearable Multi-Sensor Monitoring System

Space Motion Sickness (SMS) affects up to 70% of astronauts during initial adaptation to microgravity and can interfere with performance and mission safety. Current methods for assessing SMS rely primarily on self-reported symptoms, which are subjective and often captured only after symptoms become severe. There is a need for objective approaches that can identify early physiological changes associated with SMS onset.

This project investigates the feasibility of a wearable, multi-sensor monitoring system for early detection of space motion sickness. The system integrates several body-worn sensors, including heart rate, skin conductance, inertial motion sensing, and eye tracking, to measure how the body responds to motion-related discomfort. Data is collected during controlled, ground-based experiments using a rotating chair and virtual reality to simulate visual-vestibular mismatch, a known contributor to motion sickness.

Sensor and motion data are recorded with time stamps and analyzed alongside standardized motion sickness questionnaires commonly used in aerospace research. By examining changes relative to individual baselines, this work aims to understand how different signals change before participants report feeling worse. The study also compares which sensors provide the most useful early information.

This research overall aims to provide a practical framework for multimodal SMS monitoring and intends to inform future development of wearable assessment tools that could complement existing countermeasures during astronaut training and spaceflight operations.

Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership
Community College, Associate in Engineering
Author(s): Ava Hourihan, Artem Adylin, Tallon Bechler
Mentor: Heather Forbis, Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership

The Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership Rocketry Challenge

The Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership (CCTL) Aviation Club is designing, building, and launching a rocket that meets the demanding specifications of the American Rocketry Challenge. This competition requires students to employ the fundamentals of rocketry and the engineering process to launch a rocket to an apogee of 750 feet exactly, within a total flight time of 36 to 39 seconds. Students must also design a system that keeps an egg payload intact throughout the flight. Every year 1000 teams compete from across the United States, with the winners moving on to represent the United States in the International Rocketry Challenge.

This is the CCTL Aviation Club’s fourth year competing, and every year the team makes significant progress towards the goal of being in the top 100 teams in the United States. This year they are flying the “Wyvern” rocket using an F39T-6 Aerotech Motor with an average thrust of 37.3 Newtons and an initial thrust of 50.2 Newtons. With a diameter of 6.7 cm, and a length of 71.6 cm, this tiny rocket is nothing to underestimate. Carrying a perfect flight altimeter, several 3D printed payload and transition stage components, and in-house machined components, all 567 grams of this rocket were carefully designed by the Aviation Club team members.

Each year, the CCTL Aviation Club “Dragons” utilize their skills in engineering, project management, and teamwork in order to reach new heights, and they are looking forward to another incredible launch season that will hopefully lead them to the American Rocketry Challenge finals at the Great Meadow facility in The Plains, Virginia.

Duke University
Graduate – Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Harry Xu
Mentor: Earl Dowell, Duke University

Computational Modeling of the HyMAX Experiment with Modifications to Induce Limit-Cycle Oscillations

This study computationally modifies the geometry of the Hypersonic Multibody Aeroelastic eXperiment (HyMAX) by the University of New South Wales Canberra to induce a dynamic aeroelastic instability, or flutter, so that the flutter boundary can be determined. The nominal experimental configuration involves a cantilevered plate subjected to different shock impingement (2° and 10°) at M=5.8. Using NASA’s FUN3D and its built-in linear modal aeroelastic solver, the nominal plate thickness is gradually reduced until the cantilevered plate crosses the flutter boundary and enters into a limit-cycle oscillation. An additional case where no impinging shock is applied was also included. For the nominal experiment dimensions, the results show good agreement with the max trailing edge displacement. However, the oscillation frequency was predicted to be higher and with less damping than the experiment. When reducing the thickness of the cantilevered plate, the flutter onset point for the cases without shock impingement and 2° shock showed close agreement to prior results on a similar configuration using non-linear piston theory coupled with an inextensibility condition. The 10° shock exhibited a flutter onset point well ahead of the no shock case and suggests that in the presence of a strong shock impingement, a thicker plate is needed to suppress flutter.

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Undergraduate – Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Abhinav Das
Mentor: Veer Patel, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Aero-Acoustic Optimization and Experimental Validation of a NACA 2415 Toroidal UAV Propeller

In defense and urban surveillance operations, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), specifically small-scale multi-rotors, have an important role. Their tactical stealth and flight endurance can be compromised by aerodynamic inefficiency and loud acoustic signatures. Standard injection-molded propellers tend to focus on manufacturing scalability instead of acoustic performance. These propellers generate excess tip vortices, leading to flight inefficiencies and degraded stealth performance. This research characterizes the aero-acoustic and propulsive performance of custom-made toroidal propellers using a NACA 2415 airfoil profile compared to a standard 6-inch two-bladed commercially available propeller. The toroidal geometry was modeled in SolidWorks using advanced lofting techniques and the motor mount was simulated using topological optimization. The apparatus was fabricated with Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) on a Bambu Lab A1 printer, implementing a custom 99-wall slicing profile to maximize isotropy rotationally. The motor mount for performing static thrust tests was topologically optimized while featuring a digital load cell and Arduino data logging system to analyze thrust and acoustic curves. Results from the experiments show that the 2-blade NACA 2415 propeller achieved a 3.5 dB reduction in noise and an 11% increase in thrust efficiency at cruise (75% throttle) compared to the baseline propeller. During testing, the FDM-printed prototype propeller experienced delamination failure at 21,000 RPM (239g thrust). The findings of this experiment show that while implementing two and three blade toroidal geometries enhanced stealth and cruise efficiency for defense operations, the transition for deployment requires advanced materials like Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Nylon (PA6-CF) to withstand these centrifugal loads.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Industrial Engineering
Author(s): Donghyun Ko, Peloquin Jake
Mentor: Peloquin Jake, North Carolina State University

Risk-Aware Parameter Optimization of Additive Manufacturing Process via Conditional Diffusion Model with Co-Registered Digital-Twin Data

Additive manufacturing (AM) quality can change dramatically when process parameters such as laser power or scan speed are adjusted. Even when a parameter set performs well on average, it may still produce occasional severe defects—creating costly scrap, rework, and delays. This motivates our central research question: How can we identify process parameters that minimize both average defects and high-risk, worst-case outcomes, while also making real-time corrective decisions during printing?

To address this, we develop a data-driven framework that uses recent advances in generative modeling and machine learning. Our method analyzes early-layer observations from a build and predicts the defect behavior of future layers before they occur. A conditional diffusion model—originally developed for image synthesis—learns to generate realistic future layer signatures based on partial observations and candidate parameter settings. These generated samples reflect natural process variability and allow us to estimate not only expected defect levels but also tail-risk measures such as Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR), which quantifies the severity of the worst defects.

For each potential parameter setting, we evaluate the predicted average defect rate and tail risk, selecting the option that best balances performance and reliability. A lightweight decision model then transforms these predictions into real-time GO/NO-GO alerts, enabling early correction of potentially defective builds.

We validate our framework using the Peregrine digital-twin dataset, which provides thousands of co-registered images, scan paths, and process logs from laser powder bed fusion systems. Testing across multiple machines and process conditions demonstrates that our approach (i) reduces both mean defects and severe defect risk through risk-aware parameter selection, and (ii) provides reliable, real-time decision support from partial build information.

Overall, this work introduces a practical and scalable strategy for improving AM reliability through predictive modeling and risk-aware process control.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Abhinav Indukuri, Tobias Hullette
Mentor: Felix Ewere, North Carolina State University

REACHR: An Autonomous Hybrid UAV for Hurricane Search, Supply Delivery, and Emergency Connectivity

REACHR is an effort to develop an advanced unmanned aerial system (UAS), HERO, that helps first responders rapidly locate stranded individuals, deliver critical supplies, and restore emergency communications in disaster zones. Our goal is to make post-hurricane reconnaissance faster, cheaper, and safer than even before.

The project employs a systems-based approach that integrates aircraft design, mission autonomy, advanced sensing, and real-time data processing. The first proof-of-concept prototype, HERO 1, established core feasibility: a versatile airframe capable of VTOL/cruise operations with successful mid-flight transition, water-capable operations for flooded environments, and real-time data transmission to ground crews.

Building on these lessons, HERO 2 expands capability significantly with hybrid electric-combustion propulsion for extended endurance (2 hour flight time), modular payload architecture enabling mission-specific configurations, enhanced avionics with improved cooling, and integrated mission sensors including thermal imaging for survivor location and satellite-internet relay to restore responder connectivity. This system demonstrates the practical applications of VTOL technology and aviation autonomy; addressing NASA’s Strategic Thrust 4 and 6.

The entire system design is based on first principles. As concepts passed hand calculation tests, higher order analysis such as FEA and CFD were used to validate design. Every subsystem on the UAS underwent rigorous physical test verification, before moving into true flight testing that worked in conjunction with FEMA and NC Department of Public Safety. Early results show that this combined simulation and flight-test workflow identifies integration risks before expensive production.

Western Piedmont Community College
Author(s): Halie Chan, Jessica Lloyd and Rowan Kneen
Mentor: Timothy S. Mode, Western Piedmont Community College

Investigation Into the Synthesis of Fluorescent Gold Nanoclusters in Proteins and the Role of Disulfide Bonds in their Formation

Fluorescent gold nanoclusters have attracted much interest as a fluorophore for molecules such as proteins. Their small size and low toxicity make them an attractive fluorophore for biomedical applications. The mechanism for the formation of these nanoclusters in bovine serum albumin (BSA) is thought to revolve around disulfide bonds in the cysteine. Having successfully growing gold nanoclusters on BSA, this group will investigate their formation in other molecules including other proteins containing the same or similar disulfide bonds. Gold nanoclusters were grown on BSA at a temperature of 37° C and visible fluorescence was observed under the action of ultraviolet excitation within 1.5 hours. Fluorescence spectra using 405nm excitation yielded strong peaks at 660nm and 715nm. Similar peaks were observed in an ovaalbumin gold complex with a shift in relative intensity between the two peaks compared with those for BSA. The primary goal is to identify various factors in the reaction which promote the growth of the nanoclusters. Upon testing alternate proteins and the controlled variables of each, spectroscopic methods such as fluorescent spectroscopy, florescence lifetime spectroscopy and Ramen spectroscopy will be used to analyze results. The primary application of interest is the tracing of molecules through biological systems whose actions may be impeded by large organic fluorophores. Future studies will explore applications to pharmaceutical testing as well as medical diagnostic techniques.

Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute
Author(s): Jaylen Golston
Mentor: Leroy Magwood, Jr. and Niagara Bottling, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute

3DHoops

This project explores the design and development of customized 3D-printed insoles specifically engineered to enhance basketball performance. Basketball is a high-intensity sport characterized by frequent jumping, rapid direction changes, sprinting, and sudden stops. These movements generate significant impact forces on the feet and lower body, making proper support and cushioning essential for both performance and injury prevention. The primary goal of this project was to create insoles that improve shock absorption, lateral stability, and overall comfort during high-impact, multidirectional play.

The insoles were designed using digital modeling software, allowing for precise control over structural features and material distribution. Particular emphasis was placed on key design elements such as enhanced arch support, reinforced heel cups, and strategically placed impact distribution zones. These features were incorporated to better accommodate the biomechanical demands of basketball, including load transfer during landing and stability during lateral cuts.

A comparative analysis was conducted using two different 3D printing materials to evaluate how material properties influence flexibility, cushioning capacity, responsiveness, and overall feel. Each material was assessed for its durability, energy return, and ability to maintain structural integrity under repeated stress. By testing and comparing these materials, the project aims to identify the optimal balance between softness for comfort and firmness for support.

Through analyzing material behavior and refining structural design variations, this study seeks to develop sport-specific insoles that combine performance enhancement, durability, and individualized customization. Ultimately, the project demonstrates how additive manufacturing can be leveraged to create tailored footwear solutions that address the unique physical demands of basketball athletes.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Physics
Author(s): Eduardo Castellanos-Trejo, Richard Longland, Karen E. Daniels
Mentor: Karen Daniels, North Carolina State University

Developing Protocols to Quantify the Effect of Proton Radiation on Lunar Regolith

In the age of Artemis, lunar regolith is expected to be a valuable resource, while nonetheless remaining a hazard for equipment and personnel. It is an open challenge to model regolith dynamics since the behavior of granular materials is governed by the interparticle interactions. Because the lunar surface has large temperature fluctuations, lower gravity, vacuum, and an aggressive proton-dominated radiation environment, these interactions are particularly difficult to model on Earth.

In order to isolate and quantify the effects of irradiation on lunar regolith, we are developing a new protocol to irradiate regolith simulants at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory tandem accelerator (proton beams at 12 MeV). We have performed Transport of Radiation in Matter (TRIM) simulations to calculate the magnitude and depth of energy deposition, in order to design a sample holder that can completely irradiate 5-10 mL of granular material. We will use the samples to characterize both the mass flow rate (inspired by standard Hall funnel flow rate tests) and identify any clumping due to attractive or repulsive behavior arising from charging. At the completion of this development work, we will be ready to irradiate samples and run flow experiments when the TUNL facility reopens at the end of the current period of renovation. We will perform experiments on both glass beads (for comparison with numerical simulations) and simulated regolith, allowing us to characterize the differences in flow properties due to proton radiation.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Joseph Miles, Eduardo Castellanos, Karen E. Daniels
Mentor: Karen Daniels, North Carolina State University

Development of Granular Flow Experiments for the Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform on the ISS

We aim to test the effect of gravity on granular flows and their scaling as a function of gravitational acceleration by conducting experiments on rotating drums at various gravitational forces using the Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform (MVP) on the ISS. During this initial phase of the project, we are conducting ground-based experiments to determine the optimal granular grains and drum parameters to aid in the design of the flight apparatus. In order to achieve this, we are building a suite of experimental techniques — inclined plane failure, funnel flow, and a mockup of the ISS rotating drum assembly — to explore the behaviors of various candidate granular materials. Each of these geometries will allow us to measure the static angles of repose as a function of sample size and to evaluate the role of boundary wall friction. Our samples include both idealized options (100 micron glass beads) and increasingly realistic options (Ottawa sand, simulated lunar regolith). For each sample, and for each test geometry, we measure the static and/or dynamic angle or repose.

Funding acknowledgements: National Science Foundation grants CBET-2532009 and DMR-2243104 (via the COMPASS-ADF: The Active Duty Fellowship Program)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Graduate – Ph.D., Physics and Astronomy
Author(s): Ana Isabel Lopez Murillo, Andrew W. Mann, Madyson G. Barber, Andrew Vanderburg, Pa Chia Thao, and Andrew W. Boyle
Mentor: Andrew W. Mann, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Searching for Transit Timing Variations in Young Transiting Systems

The discovery of young (<800 Myr) transiting planets has provided a new avenue to explore how planets form and evolve over their lifetimes. Mass measurements for these planets would be invaluable, but radial velocity surveys of young systems are often overwhelmed by stellar activity. Transit timing variations (TTVs) offer an alternative route to measure masses that are less impacted by signals from the host star. Here we search for candidate TTVs in a sample of 39 young systems hosting 53 transiting planets using data from Kepler, K2, and TESS. We recover previously reported TTVs for 11 planets, including those in V1298 Tau, TOI-2076, Kepler-51, and TOI-1227, and identify new candidate TTVs for four planets (DS Tuc Ab, HD 63433 b, K2-101 b, and Kepler-1643 b). In total, 28.3% ± 6.2% of the young planets in our sample show evidence of TTVs, which is higher than the rate from Kepler on mostly older systems (7.3% ± 0.6%). Accounting for differences in data coverage and quality between Kepler and TESS only increases this difference (>4σ), although differences in methodology make a totally fair comparison challenging. We show that spots have a weak-to-negligible impact on our results, and similarly cannot explain the higher TTV fraction. Longer-term monitoring will be required to validate these TTVs as planetary in nature and confirm the high TTV rate. While the candidate TTV signals detected here are sparsely sampled, our work provides a clear priority list for additional ground-based observations, and for multiplanet TTVs, to measure the masses and eccentricities of these planets.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Geospatial Analytics
Author(s): Gwen Kirschke, Ian Breckheimer, Elsa Youngsteadt
Mentor: Elsa Youngsteadt, North Carolina State University

Remote Sensing of Flowers: A Comparison of Methods for Combining Field Sampling with Hyperspectral Imagery

The spatial distributions of plants in a landscape are the outcomes of complex processes, and mapping these distributions is challenging and time consuming. Plant distributions, in turn, affect animal movement patterns and how much energy they expend while foraging. Most established ecological research methods only assess plant abundance at discrete sampling points. However, animals forage throughout the landscape. This mismatch limits our ability to understand and predict resource constraints on animal population size and location. With the advent of high-definition remote sensing, results from discrete sampling points can be scaled up to continuous maps of resource distributions. I compared two methods for such modeling: 1) conducting a field campaign concurrent with imagery collection and using the resulting data to create a “snapshot” of floral availability during the imaging flight, and 2) training a model on long-term plant community and flowering phenology data to estimate resources at many timepoints. I conducted this work near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado—an area with abundant plant and bee research that could benefit from these models—and in collaboration with the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study. I led a 6-person field team that collected floral count data from 480 quadrats across 8 sites, concurrent with an imaging flight by the National Ecological Observatory Network Aerial Observation Platform, to provide training data for method 1. Together with another research team, we also collected 9 weekly floral counts along transects at 6 sites in the same domain to provide training data for method 2. I am creating partial least squares regression models for both methods, and assessing their accuracy using withheld subsets of the field data. Preliminary results show moderate accuracy and align with observed broad vegetation patterns.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Undergraduate – Senior, Biology
Author(s): Jessica Solomon
Mentor: Misty Thomas, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Genetic Adaptations of Streptococcus mutans Under Simulated Microgravity: Implications for Astronaut Health

Microbial adaptation in space poses a critical challenge for astronaut health, particularly in maintaining oral microbiome stability. Streptococcus mutans, a major contributor to dental caries and biofilm formation, presents risks during long-duration spaceflight due to its rapid adaptation to environmental stressors. While past studies have examined population-level evolution of S. mutans under simulated microgravity, little is known about how individual clones adapt genetically over time. Our study addresses this gap by analyzing genomic adaptations of S. mutans clones following 100 days of experimental evolution in simulated microgravity. We hypothesize that S. mutans populations evolved under simulated microgravity (sMG) will develop distinct evolutionary structures detectable through comparisons of population-level and individual-clone whole-genome sequencing. This clonal approach moves beyond population averages, revealing distinct adaptive strategies and evolutionary dynamics that bulk analyses may obscure. Single colonies from two adapted populations (sMG6 and sMG7) were plated and isolated, followed by DNA extraction and whole-genome sequencing to identify clonal mutations. Three core microgravity-adaptive mutations were fixed across all populations and nearly every individual clone, establishing a shared adaptive foundation, while lineage-specific patterns diverged between sMG6 and sMG7. By comparing mutational patterns across clones, we assess which mutations co-occur, which arise independently, and whether parallel evolution is taking place. Insights into these genomic changes will clarify the selective pressures and mechanisms shaping S. mutans in microgravity. Ultimately, our findings contribute to spaceflight microbiology by predicting potential increases in virulence, antibiotic resistance, and biofilm formation, informing strategies to mitigate risks to astronaut health during long-duration missions.

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington (recent graduate) & University of Maryland
Graduate – Ph.D., Applied Mathematics
Author(s): Owen Deen
Mentor: Jennifer Yin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Analysis of WFI Data Through LLMs

Large scientific datasets often make it difficult for researchers to efficiently locate and use relevant information. Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs) enable new approaches for simplifying data retrieval through conversational interfaces. This project develops a multi-agent LLM system that allows users to query scientific databases using plain language to improve the efficiency of data access and interpretation. The system integrates Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with a vector database to strengthen context retrieval and schema understanding. One agent translates natural language input into SQL, while another interprets and summarizes query results in concise natural language. PostgreSQL integration and a validation framework ensure accuracy and reliability. The LLM, GPT-OSS-20b, was fine-tuned using Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) to enhance dialogue clarity. Results indicate that schema complexity and retrieval delays created some difficulty, yet the system maintained consistent and interpretable outputs. These findings suggest that multi-agent LLM systems can streamline data access and improve research efficiency in large-scale scientific environments.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Nanoengineering
Author(s): Laurence Price-Webb, Emanuel Waddell, Roderquita K. Moore
Mentor: Emanuel Waddell, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Effect of Nanocellulose Fibrils on the Development of Concrete for Nuclear and Martian Applications

Globally, concrete is the most widely used material for its accessibility, versatility, and cost-effectiveness, but ordinary mixtures are not sufficient in highly aggressive environments where strength and durability are critical. Unlike ordinary concrete, Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) is highly durable and strong while exhibiting permeability that is two orders of magnitude lower. Although Ultra-High Performance Concrete is an ideal alternative to metals, especially steel, in many applications, one major challenge is its performance and durability at high temperatures. To mitigate the low fire resistance, plastic microfibers are generally used in UHPC, which create beneficial voids once melted. In our novel approach to improve the fire and thermal capacity of commercially available UHPCs the macro fibers are replaced with nanocellulose fibers to create a more uniformly dispersed void network to better alleviate vapor pressure build up inside the material due to the low permeability of UHPC. To understand the effects of the nanocellulose fiber inclusion on this performance a comparison between two commercially available UHPCs before and after modification are evaluated.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Applied Mathematics
Author(s): Patrick Haughey, Semyon Tsynkov, Mikhail Gilman
Mentor: Semyon Tsynkov, North Carolina State University

Global Optimization for Transionospheric SAR Autofocus

This study extends the analysis of transionospheric autofocus, an optimization-based method for correcting scintillation phase errors (SPE) induced by the ionosphere. A global optimization framework is introduced to evaluate whether the cost function previously developed for this algorithm is fundamentally well constructed. The analysis is conducted using synthetic imaging scenes where the true image is known, which allows a precise and quantitative assessment of performance. A large statistical ensemble of thousands of realizations is generated in which ionospheric turbulence, noise, and clutter are systematically varied. Two global optimization strategies are investigated: a naïve multi-start approach and a physics-informed swarm-based method. The results show that the swarm-based method achieves higher image quality and greater robustness than both the single local optimizer used in previous work and the multi-start approach examined here. The cost function remains effective across moderate clutter conditions but loses reliability as environmental complexity increases. A practical upper limit is established for clutter intensity, beyond which no optimization method can recover a well-focused image. These findings confirm that the cost function is well designed for realistic imaging conditions and that a physics-informed global optimization strategy offers a reliable approach for transionospheric autofocus.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Graduate – Ph.D., Physics and Astronomy
Author(s): Sebastian J. Figueroa, Alexander C. Sobotka, Adrienne L. Erickcek
Mentor: Adrienne Erickcek, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Probing the Robustness of Cosmological Bounds on the Neutrino Mass

We investigate the extent to which cosmological bounds on the neutrino mass depend on assumptions embedded in the standard ΛCDM model. Massive neutrinos free stream and inhibit the growth of structure on small scales, leading to suppression in the matter power spectrum and providing an independent probe of their mass. However, the neutrino number density is inferred and relies on assumptions about the thermal history of the early universe, since the cosmic neutrino background (CNB) has not yet been directly detected. We consider a cosmology in which a massive scalar particle decays into photons and other relativistic particles sometime between Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and recombination. The injection of photons alters the ratio between neutrino and photon densities, reducing the neutrino abundance inferred from the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature. We perform a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis while allowing the new particle’s decay parameters and the neutrino mass to vary, thereby probing the extent to which our underlying cosmological assumptions affect bounds on the neutrino mass. Constraints are obtained using CMB observations from Planck and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), spectral distortion bounds from the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on board the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), and primordial deuterium abundance measurements. We present updated bounds on the neutrino mass that incorporate the possibility of this new particle, finding that cosmological constraints are marginally weaker than in the standard ΛCDM framework while remaining robust overall.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Applied Science and Technology, Biology
Author(s): Charles Naney, Joseph L. Graves, Jr., Scott H. Harrison
Mentor: Scott H. Harrison, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

The Evolutionary Theory of Aging in Spaceflight, Oxidative Stress, and Microbiome Dysbiosis

Extreme environments on Earth and in Outer Space have been found to perturb organismal physiology, and have been further proposed to accelerate the process of aging. Chordates (human and rodent), and arthropods (fruit fly) species have all been found to exhibit various physiological changes in response to spaceflight, including accumulations of oxidative stress and alterations to the gut microbiota. We investigate these phenomena through computational analysis of data from different studies provided within the NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR). We specifically hypothesize that changes in physiology due to both natural aging and accelerated aging associate with accumulation of damaging oxidative stress biomarkers expected to occur after natural selection declines during post-reproductive life stages. Although the genetic background differs between organisms of the OSDR data set that have been exposed to spaceflight (e.g., fruit flies and mice), we find that ontological modeling of various omics data along with microbiome shifts implicate specific common steps of metabolic pathways relating to oxidative stress and bioenergetics. This finding is comparable to changes in genetic expression and biomarkers found to occur as organisms begin to age after their net reproductive fitness has reached zero. Our study may provide a more detailed understanding of how natural aging is impacted by environmentally-induced levels of oxidative stress. By better understanding accelerated aging due to extreme environments, we may ultimately have greater insight into controlling the physiological, cellular, and molecular mechanisms of senescence.

Duke University
Graduate – Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Annika Haughey, Shannon Barter, Cameron Reid, Seven Thornton, Sabino Zani, Louise Jackson, Brian Mann
Mentor: Brian Mann, Duke University

Nonlinear Dynamics in Surgery

Automated surgical skill assessment increasingly relies on kinematic analysis to quantify proficiency, yet current frameworks predominantly focus on instrument manipulation, often overlooking the critical role of Laparoscopic Camera Navigation (LCN). To address this gap, this study utilizes a maze training module and analyzes six-degree-of-freedom trajectory data from 59 participants ranging from novices to expert surgeons. We developed and evaluated a series of dynamic metrics, alongside advanced time-series analysis techniques such as Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA). To evaluate metric generalizability across distinct surgical domains, we applied our analysis to both our LCN data and the JIGSAWS dataset. Our results identify key dynamic signatures of proficiency: Total Time and Idle Time were highly significant discriminators in LCN, confirming that expert proficiency is characterized by efficiency and a lack of hesitation. We demonstrate that metric selection must be context-aware; Space Coverage effectively differentiated skill in the exploratory LCN task, whereas Backtracking proved effective only for the constrained manipulation tasks in JIGSAWS. DTW yielded the highest statistical significance and successfully clustered participants by skill level in an unsupervised manner for the LCN task. DTW distances calculated against a computationally generated optimal trajectory performed as well as those against human expert trajectories, suggesting that automated systems can be deployed without reliance on scarce expert benchmarks. Finally, RQA revealed that experts sustain longer periods of predictable motion compared to novices across tasks, providing a comprehensive framework for scalable and objective surgical skill assessment.

North Carolina State University
Graduate – Ph.D., Biological and Agricultural Engineering
Author(s): Savannah Roth, Dr. William Hunt, Dr. Vinicius Taguchi
Mentor: William Hunt, North Carolina State University

Advancing Stormwater Management Through Open-Source, Real-Time Control Systems

As rainfall events intensify, adaptive stormwater management is becoming more critical to address flood mitigation and water quality degradation. To address this challenge, this project presents StormPack RTC, a forecast-driven real-time control system that integrates rainfall forecasts with real-time hydrological data to preemptively drain stormwater ponds before storms, reducing flood risk and peak flows. The system connects distributed sensor nodes to a central dashboard that handles data processing and control decisions across multiple ponds. The entire platform is open-source and distributed through NC State Extension with documentation that enables municipalities and communities to deploy their own systems. However, this approach does involve tradeoffs compared to commercial RTC solutions regarding implementation support and long-term reliability. This presentation will explore the system’s design and deployment, emphasizing how forecast-driven control offers a cost-effective stormwater management solution while examining the practical benefits and challenges of open-source technology for stormwater engineering applications.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Author(s): Raina Gandhi
Mentor: Natasha Schatzman, NASA Ames Research Center

Development of a Low-Order Rotor Downwash Computational Tool for Rotorcraft Ground Effect Modeling

Rotor downwash and outwash are aerodynamic phenomena that occur when rotorcraft operate near the ground, producing high-speed airflow that can lift debris, reduce visibility, and impact safety for nearby personnel. Understanding this flow behavior is critical for rotorcraft and eVTOL design, particularly under ground-effect conditions and in complex operating environments.

As a Research Intern at NASA Ames Research Center in the Aeromechanics Branch, I developed a low-order computational model in MATLAB to simulate rotor downwash using simplified viscous flow equations. The model separates the flow into three physical regions: a vertical jet beneath the rotor, a stagnation zone near the ground, and a radial wall jet along the surface. These regions were modeled using analytical solutions and geometric logic drawn from fluid dynamics literature, including Glauert’s impinging jet theory. The resulting tool is fast, interpretable, and scalable by rotor radius, making it suitable for early-stage design analysis and hazard prediction. A 3D visualization was also developed to illustrate how flow behavior varies with rotor-to-ground height.

In parallel, I contributed to the development of NASA’s Rapid BVI Tool (RABIT), which predicts rotor blade-vortex interaction noise occurrences. I also supported the organization and scientific writing of two NASA Technical Memoranda documenting acoustic experiments conducted in the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory under simulated Martian pressure conditions. Additionally, I mentored a high school student in the construction and presentation of a scaled physical model of a Mars rotorcraft concept. This experience strengthened my skills in technical modeling, scientific communication, and the real-world application of aerospace research.

North Carolina State University
Undergraduate – Senior, Aerospace Engineering, Nuclear Engineering
Author(s): Siddharth Sivakumar, Dr. Scott Palmtag
Mentor: Scott Palmtag, North Carolina State University

Mass Analysis of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Reactor Core Enrichments via Monte-Carlo Methods

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) technology has slowly matured since the ROVER/NERVA programmes of the 1960s/1970s. Recent focus on transitioning from High-Enriched Uranium (HEU) to Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) designs introduces new challenges in the form of mass constraints. Therefore, this work attempts to characterise the mass increases caused by conversion from HEU to Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) in solid-core NTP designs. First, a design is made using Monte-Carlo (MC) codes such as OpenMC. In order to simulate the neutronics of these cores, an eigenvalue search is conducted on the design, with a HEU fuel loading. Then, converting to LEU, it is possible to determine the subsequent loss in reactivity, and therefore find new configurations which provide critical eigenvalues. Approaching the problem from a safety perspective, both of the final reactor geometries, HEU and LEU, can undergo edge-case testing under various failure modes, such as water immersion criticality. Finally, the mass of both geometries can be analysed, determining the necessary increase for LEU adoption. The final aim will be to create a trade study on whether the NTP solid-core system is still economically feasible under LEU restrictions.