SPOTLIGHT Archive

The NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) High School Summer Internship Program had the opportunity to select 4 students to conduct research in microgravity on a Zero-G G-Force One aircraft last year. Many applications were received for the coveted four research positions. Students would work remotely with their project teachers, scientist, and director of Wisconsin ...

The Center for Space Research hosted the Quantum Networking Event on February 7, 2024 as part of the kickoff activities of the Quantum Pathways Institute (QPI), a NASA-sponsored Space Technology Research Institute. The event served as an informal opportunity for academia, national labs, and industry to get together and share views on research, education/workforce development, and ...

The Center for Space Research hosted a Technical Showcase on January 23, 2024. The event highlighted the various research projects at the Center, and provided the opportunity for CSR’s research staff, students and invited guests to engage and foster community interaction and conversation. Please visit CSR’s Flickr album for more photos from the event at: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBekTK

For the last few decades, a series of satellites have used lasers to radically improve our understanding of Earth and how it is changing over time. This technology, satellite laser altimetry, has quantified data on critical climate issues such as melting ice, sea level changes, carbon levels in forests around the globe and the amount ...

“Monitoring Earth’s climate variables with satellite laser altimetry” , was recently published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment by the Center’s Lori Magruder and Amy Neuenschwander on how satellite laser altimetry has provided critical measurements of Earth for multi-disciplinary knowledge of climate impact. Co-authors on the paper include Sinead Farrell and Laura Duncanson of the ...

“Monitoring Coastal Waves with ICESat-2“, was recently published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering by the Center’s James Dietrich and Matt Holwill characterizing coastal waves with ICESat-2. Abstract: The coastal zone faces an ever-growing risk associated with climate-driven change, including sea level rise and increased frequency of extreme natural hazards. Often the location and ...

A new paper, “Modeling Uncertainty of GEDI Clear-Sky Terrain Height Retrievals Using a Mixture Density Network”, was recently published in the Special Issue of Remote Sensing and Ecosystem Modeling for Nature-Based Solutions by The University of Texas Center for Space Research Ph.D student, Jonathan Sipps, about innovative solutions for remote sensing analytics using machine learning ...

The STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) High School Summer Internship Program, which is a nationally competitive STEM program for high school students and is part of the NASA Science Activation (SciAct), was awarded NASA’s Group Achievement Award on November 16, 2023, at the NASA SciAct Annual Meeting in Virginia.  The NASA Group Achievement Award recognizes ...

  Twelve 2023 NASA SEES interns are in Houston, Texas for the #OSIRISREx VIP reveal event at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Wednesday, October 11, 2023. The NASA SEES Summer High School Internship program was offered the opportunity to invite 12 NASA SEES students to join the Center for Space Research Education and Outreach’s Margaret Baguio and ...

As ice sheets and glaciers continue to lose mass, we expect sea levels to rise by different amounts around the world and even to fall near the ice sheets. Models predicting these patterns form the basis of future sea-level projections.  However, the patterns over large spatial scales have never been directly observed, as they were ...