The first stage of Florida Tech’s inaugural Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) competition concluded earlier this month with 11 student teams submitting proposals for experiments to be performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Three proposals will advance for consideration by the national SSEP board, and one of those will be chosen to fly to the ISS in this fall. First, though, a selection committee comprised of Provost John Z. Kiss and faculty members Andrew Palmer, Toufiq Reza and Richard Addante carefully evaluated and scored each proposal to identify the three finalists.
“The margins between most of these proposals was extremely small,” said Palmer, who has overseen the SSEP initiative at Florida Tech. “Committee members were impressed with the attention to detail and the hard work students clearly put into their proposals. We hope and expect to have future opportunities to develop and showcase work like this.”
The winning teams are:
- “Investigating the impacts of microgravity on ciliary and flagellar development,” Lucy Turner (senior, general biology), Josh Ahrens (senior, marine biology) and Trevor Mello (senior, environmental science).
- “Hydrogel-Radiation shielding viability under the influence of microgravity,” Leighton Karpina (sophomore, mechanical engineering), Lelya Avant (junior, aerospace engineering), Sampada Koriala (Ph.D. student, biomedical engineering), Emily Matheson (junior, biomedical engineering) and Caroline Moore (junior, biomedical engineering).
- “Transfer of Ribozymes in Asteroid Halite,” Rahi Kashikar (senior, astrobiology) and Elizabeth Hayes (senior, astronomy and astrophysics).
The committee also named two Honorable Mention projects:
- “Investigating the effects of microgravity on plant genetic transformation,” Davonya Cheek (senior, astrobiology), Rahi Kashikar (senior, astrobiology) and Eva Bernadel (sophomore, biomedical science)
- “The production of antimicrobial secondary metabolites in microgravity,” Trent Causey (senior, astrobiology), McKenna Taylor (senior, astrobiology and astrophysics), Sarah Lang (senior biology and criminal justice, Winston Salem State Universiy), Trevor Mello (senior, environmental science), Anna Weatherwax (freshman, astrobiology), Al Zaidi (Holy Trinity High School).
