The internship was designed to be an in-person research
experience, but Rushton and the NASA team quickly transitioned to create a
meaningful remote internship when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many plans to change.
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| Rushton's at-home setup for his remote NASA internship |
When electromagnetic radiation from certain deep space
communications or low-power systems in low-Earth orbit gets to a receiver on
Earth, there is so little incoming light that the photons actually need to be
counted. Rushton’s job this summer was to quantify the inefficiency in photon
counting methods in situations where a ground station is detecting incoming light
from these photon-depraved situations. The results from his project—Finding the
Modes of Arbitrary 2D Geometries Using Finite Difference Techniques—will be
incorporated into existing NASA frameworks.
“I don’t feel like I was given work just so there could be
an internship, they had all this real work for us,” Rushton said.
The internship allows students to perform hands-on training
with real mission scenarios, gain exposure and analyze powerful space
communication systems, utilize networks software tools and effectively
communicate their findings in a final presentation to NASA management. Each
student is paired with an experienced and multidisciplinary mentor who counsels
the student with his/her work, and also engages with career planning.
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| Rushton speaking
with former NASA astronaut Alvin Drew during his virtual 2020 NASA internship. |
His advice to current and future students?
“If there's something that you want, there's no reason not
to apply for it. Never be afraid to put yourself out there.”
