Internship Highlight: NASA Langley Research Center
Hello, my name is Christopher Davami (he/him). This fall I will start my senior year at San Diego State University. I am studying for an Aerospace Engineering degree with a minor in Mathematics.
This Summer I had the privilege of working at NASA Langley Research Center (NASA-LARC) as an intern in the Atmospheric Flight and Entry Systems Branch. I acquired this internship through my undergraduate
research position at SDSU Research Foundation. This internship was sponsored by my undergraduate research program M-Star.
My daily routine varies from day to day, but here is an example of a busy day as a NASA intern:
6:30 – Wake up and get dressed preferably with some NASA merch as there’s nothing better when someone working for NASA says “That’s a sweet NASA shirt! Where’d you get it?!” I quickly make a
couple of PB&J’s for breakfast and scramble out the door to get to work.
7:30 - Arrive at work and say hello to my friend at the badge check booth. I usually am the first one there for the first 30-45 min, which means this is my most productive time of the day! I set up my desk with my computer, throw my lunch in the break room and immediately go to town on some work before my intern friends distract me.
8:30 – Everyone has usually shown up by this point (there are about 10 interns in my cubicle block) and we chat about whatever the hot topic is of the day. As we begin work, we tend to collaborate on each other’s work even though we are not working on the same project. This not only helps to troubleshoot but also allows me to learn about so many different projects going on within my branch.
9:30 – A tour is usually scheduled around here. This can vary from a hypersonic wind tunnel with 1⁄2 million-dollar models to drop tests at their crash testing gantry to clusters of supercomputers. The tours usually provide a quick presentation of the facility's history, how it works, and what it does for NASA. Following this, we get to get up close to some of NASA’s most valuable research equipment.
10:30 – Back to work. Specifically, this summer’s goal for me was to make a guidance algorithm for an aerocapture mission on the Ice Giant planets such as Neptune and Uranus. This means a lot of my work was coding and running simulations of trajectories.
12:00 – LUNCH! All the interns go to the cafeteria at the center to eat together. Sometimes branch members attend as well =)
13:00 – Back to work usually I would have a meeting with my mentor or another member of the branch around this time
14:00- Twice a week we have a Seminar discussing a topic in Entry Descent and Landing. These seminars
helped connect students with the current missions and research developments in our field of study. This
was a joint seminar with the NASA Ames Research Center in California.
15:30 – Work Work Work
16:30 – Finish the day and head to the LaRC gym with a few interns followed by a friendly game of
basketball or volleyball
My favorite part of the internship was being a part of so many tours. The facilities at LaRC are so historic and interesting. We were able to see the newest entry vehicles, wind tunnels, crash tests, moon lander simulators, and F-22 fighter jet demonstrations.
This internship showed me that I have a passion for researching new ideas. For this reason, I am planning on going to graduate school for a Ph.D. and will be applying to schools this fall!
