Carthage student interns at NASA

Carthage senior Charley Follett, a geography major, spent the summer conducting earth science research with NASA. He had a month-long internship at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. There, he and five other college students studied environmental problems using satellite and air photo images.

"I was in charge of making maps of satellite imagery using the GIS program ArcGIS and other visualization programs, such as ERDAS and ENVI," explained Charley, from Glen Ellyn, Ill.

He was hired through NASA's DEVELOP program, an applied sciences training and development program sponsored by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Students are mentored by NASA advisors as they work on earth science research projects using NASA satellites. According to NASA's web site, DEVELOP research extends to local communities, and projects demonstrate to community leaders how NASA science measurements and predictions can be used to address local policy issues.

"I developed for the project a method of masking snow water equivalent derived from the ASMR-E instrument on the NASA Aqua satellite, by a polygon outline of the Colorado River headwaters sub-basin," Charley said.

"It taught me the importance of scripting with GIS programs, how to do research projects in a short time frame with a team, and how to do research using remote sensing and NASA satellites and instruments."

He says a highlight of the internship was taking the photograph above. "I spent almost all of my internship in an office working on computers, but NASA was always taking us interns on tours and other special opportunities to teach us the history behind the research center," he said. "In the photo, I am suited up in front of a climate research plane. We also toured a wind tunnel, one of several at Langley Research Center, and launched a weather balloon."

In addition to his major in geography, Charley is working toward minors in geographic information science and Asian studies. He is president of the Geography Club, a senior senator in Student Government, a past vice-president of Model UN, and a co-founder of Carthage's Stand Up Comedy Club. He also writes a regular column in The Current, Carthage's student newspaper.