CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2024)

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges
at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s “Summer of AI” (Artificial Intelligence) — a season-long learning campaign — “aims to enhance our workforce’s ability to harness the technical and cultural potential of AI.” Summer interns are no exception, with a record 17 interns growing their knowledge and agency capabilities by tackling AI and other technological challenges across the Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (CISTO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

“We know that AI is our future, and our organization must better understand how to enable that future for our scientists,” said CISTO Chief Daniel Duffy. “Collaborating with our summer interns on AI and other projects gave us an opportunity to explore problems from a unique and fresh perspective. I would even say that we learned just as much from their innovative ideas and enthusiasm as they did from us!”

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2)

This year’s summer interns were integral members of CISTO’s Advanced Software Technology Group (ASTG), Data Science Group, High-Performance Computing Group and its NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), Science-Managed Cloud Environment (SMCE) team, and Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS). Working alongside their mentors, interns applied AI and machine learning to a variety of NASA Earth and space science studies, information display design, and supercomputing benchmarking; furthered Earth system modeling by developing testing software and porting model components; and investigated software solutions and tools for enhancing the NCCS supercomputing environment and user experience.

Hear more from 11 CISTO interns about their backgrounds and projects by clicking on the buttons below.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (3)

Title
NASA Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Assisting in the development of ASSERT, regression testing software for supporting Earth system models.

Mentors
Jules Kouatchou

Education
Michael Aidoo is a rising senior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (4)

Title
Pathways Intern in the CISTO Data Science Group

Terms with CISTO
Spring 2022, Summer 2022, Spring 2023, Summer 2023, and Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Developing a physics-informed neural network to predict crater relaxation on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.

Mentors
Mark Carroll

Education
Mariana Blanco-Rojas is a Ph.D. student at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (5)

Title
NASA Intern for the Earth Information Center (EIC) in the Scientific Visualization Studio

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Programming interactive displays for EIC locations, developing scripts to load data more efficiently and automatically, and using machine learning to design a wall with color-themed Earth images and mosaics.

Mentors
Brenda Lopez Silva and Michael Chyatte

Education
Ria Gupta is a recent graduate of the University at Buffalo, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (6)

Title
NASA Intern in the CISTO Data Science Group

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Using transfer learning with foundation models to identify dead trees in high-resolution G-LiHT imagery.

Mentor
Mark Carroll, Bruce Cook, Paul Montesano, Jordan A. Caraballo-Vega, and Caleb Spradlin

Education
Sarah King is a graduate student at the University of California, Davis.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (7)

Title
NASA Intern in the CISTO Data Science Group

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Processing data from the IKONOS satellite for canopy height modeling and change detection in Alaska.

Mentor
Mark Carroll and Paul Montesano

Education
Christina Lee is a rising senior at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (8)

Title
NASA Intern in the CISTO High-Performance Computing Group

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Utilizing various large language models (LLMs) — Llama3, Gemini, and ChatGPT 4.0 — to translate the STREAM, Linpack, and NAS Parallel Benchmarks from Fortran to Python and evaluate their performance.

Mentors
Johana Chazaro Cortes and Jeremy Raupp

Education
David Li is a rising freshman at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (9)

Title
High-Performance Computing Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS)

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Investigating various software solutions that may be integrated into NCCS, with research including installation of new technologies, benchmarking, developing recommendations on future use, analyzing performance, and studying techniques to improve operating system provisioning in supercomputing environments..

Mentor
Laura Carriere, Bruce Pfaff, and William Woodford

Education
Morgan Newton is a rising senior studying computer science at the University of California, Irvine.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (10)

Title
NASA Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS)

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Exploring task farming tools and creating the NCCS Task Farming (NCCS_TF) package, which utilizes GNU Parallel and Slurm srun to optimize task parallelism.

Mentors
Jules Kouatchou

Education
Rodiat Sanni is an undergraduate computer science student at the University of Maryland, College Park.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (11)

Title
NASA Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS)

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2023 and Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Developing job intervention protocols on the NCCS Discover supercomputer to increase uptime and scheduler efficiency, ultimately improving user experience.

Mentors
Laura Carriere and Bruce Pfaff

Education
Lucas Snyder is a graduate student at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (12)

Title
NASA intern on the CISTO Science-Managed Cloud Environment Team

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Experimenting with training and evaluating feedforward neural networks to predict corrections applied to physics-based weather models.

Mentors
Hoot Thompson and Daniel Duffy

Education
Matthew Vu is a graduate student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (13)

Title
NASA Scientist Programmer Analyst Intern in the CISTO Advanced Software Technology Group

Terms with CISTO
Summer 2024

Internship Overview
Kickstarting the port of Moist Physics from the GEOS model to the NOAA-NASA Domain Specific Language (NDSL) middleware layer by leveraging the open-source packages GT4Py and DaCe, focusing on Radiation Coupling and Aerosol Activation in the GEOS Atmospheric General Circulation Model, while contributing to the maturation and debugging of the developing framework.

Mentors
Florian Deconinck and Christopher Kung

Education
Matthew Weil graduated from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, in May 2024, and will be attending Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, to pursue graduate education in air quality remote sensing and modeling.

Jarrett Cohen, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
August 28, 2024

CISTO Summer 2024 Interns Take on AI and Other Challenges at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2024)

FAQs

How much does NASA Goddard Space Flight Center pay? ›

The average NASA Goddard Space Flight Center salary ranges from approximately $48,738 per year (estimate) for a Front Desk Receptionist to $213,398 per year (estimate) for a Ground Systems Manager.

Know More ›

What do they do at the Goddard Space Flight Center? ›

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is home to the nation's largest organization of scientists, engineers and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe.

Get More Info Here ›

How many people work at NASA Goddard? ›

Goddard Space Flight Center has a workforce of over 3,000 civil servant employees, 60% of whom are engineers and scientists. There are approximately 7,000 supporting contractors on site every day. It is one of the largest concentrations of the world's premier space scientists and engineers.

How much do astronauts get paid per hour? ›

As of Aug 19, 2024, the average hourly pay for a Nasa Astronaut in California is $25.66 an hour. While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $33.21 and as low as $14.71, the majority of Nasa Astronaut salaries currently range between $19.90 (25th percentile) to $26.11 (75th percentile) in California.

Discover More ›

How much does NASA pay per seat? ›

Dragon and Starliner seat cost: In 2019, NASA's inspector general pegged Crew Dragon's cost per seat at $55M and Starliner's cost per seat at $90M. Crew Dragon's cost per seat has risen with its two contract extensions. The cost per seat for SpaceX's Crew-7 through Crew-9 contract extension increased to $65M.

Read The Full Story ›

What are the gold rules for Goddard Space Flight Center? ›

The Goddard Open Learning Design (GOLD) Rules specify engineering principles and practices which have evolved in the Goddard community and are intended to describe foundational principles without being overly prescriptive of an implementation “philosophy.” Each GOLD Rule specifies requirements in the form of a Rule ...

Keep Reading ›

Is Goddard part of NASA? ›

Goddard is NASA's premiere space flight complex and home to the nation's largest organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments, and new technology to study Earth, the Sun, our solar system, and the universe.

Explore More ›

How many buildings are at Goddard Space Flight Center? ›

Situated on nearly 1,300 acres, NASA's GSFC provides wide-ranging science and engineering support to the Agency. The campus consists of 36 major facilities, and approximately 52 smaller buildings and structures housing approximately 8,600 on-site employees.

Show Me More ›

Is NASA Goddard a good place to work? ›

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has an overall rating of 4.1 out of 5, based on over 346 reviews left anonymously by employees. 86% of employees would recommend working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to a friend and 55% have a positive outlook for the business.

Tell Me More ›

How many people intern at NASA? ›

NASA's Office of STEM Engagement provides, annually, more than 2,000 students the opportunity to impact the agency's mission through a hands-on internship.

Explore More ›

What is the operating status of NASA Goddard? ›

NASA OPERATING STATUS: NORMAL.

Get More Info ›

Which space agency pays the most? ›

Highest Paying Job At NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Team Leader - $119,174. See Other Titles.
Highest Paying Department At NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retail - $87,864. ...
Highest Paying Location At NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Chicago, IL - $57,881.

Know More ›

What is the pay grade for NASA astronauts? ›

According to NASA, civilian astronaut salaries are determined by the US Government's pay scales – or more specifically grades GS-13 to GS-14. As of 2022, the GS-13 pay scale ranges from $81,216 to $105,579 per annum. This is up to $8,798.25 per month or $50.59 an hour.

Discover More ›

How much NASA pays SpaceX? ›

NASA Will Pay SpaceX Up to $843 Million to Destroy the International Space Station. When the International Space Station (ISS) is finally retired at the end of 2030, the nearly one-million-pound vessel won't be left to drift aimlessly in its orbit 250 miles above the ground. Instead, NASA will pay SpaceX to destroy it.

Show Me More ›

How much does NASA pay for the ISS? ›

The ISS costs about $3 billion a year, roughly a third of NASA's annual human space flight budget, and while current plans call for the Station's retirement in 2024, an extension to 2030 is likely.

Learn More Now ›