Scholar Spotlight: Trent Kingery

Astronaut Scholar, Captain Trent Kingery, was deployed in January 2006 for seven months to Al Asad, Iraq for his second combat tour with the United States Navy. During this deployment, he flew 354 combat hours and 113 combat sorties while providing "on-call" Close Air Support to ground forces. In June 2006, he surpassed the 1,000 FA-18 flight hour mark.

Upon returning from his combat deployment in late August, Kingery accepted orders to become a member of the acquisition community at NAVAIR, Patuxent River, Maryland. Trent was assigned to the V-22 Program Office. He is currently pursuing Level I certification in Test & Evaluation, Program Management and Systems Engineering from the Defense Acquisition University (DAU).

Kingery received the Astronaut Scholarship Award at North Carolina State University in 1998–99.

Scholar Spotlight: Theresa Kowalkowski

Astronaut Scholar, Theresa Kowalkowski, was recently named Lead of the Mission Design Chair for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Advanced Projects Design Team, or Team X. This concurrent engineering design team is responsible for evaluating mission concepts for JPL and non-JPL missions flying to the Moon, Mars and beyond. As an undergraduate, she gained experience through a NASA co-op program and moved on to the Mars Exploration Rover program after receiving her Master's degree. Theresa received the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation's award from 1998–2000 while at Purdue University.

Scholar Spotlight: Jayleen Guttromson

Jayleen Guttromson, 2003–2005 Astronaut Scholar from Purdue University, is an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Deputy Subsystem Manager (SSM) at NASA Johnson Space Center providing technical interface between the contractor and other areas of NASA. In this position, she oversees EMU operations from build-up and processing to spacewalks and chamber or neutral buoyancy laboratory runs including repair and upgrading hardware to failure investigations. These topics involve integration of engineering and program management to sustain technical expertise for preparing and attending test readiness reviews, developing and reviewing technical paperwork, procedures, and presentations, including attending technical meetings. As an SSM, Jayleen also has the opportunity to be a test subject with hardware.

Scholar Spotlight: Karen Uffalussy

Karen Uffalussy, 2003–2004 Astronaut Scholar from North Carolina State University, was awarded a fellowship from the National Science Foundation to lead a research group of chemical engineering undergraduates in Japan. For four months, she lived in Osaka, Japan and worked in Kaneda Sensei's laboratory at Osaka University. In this laboratory, Mizugaki Sensei, guided her research work and helped her build on her knowledge of autoclave reactors and rhodium cluster synthesis.

After intense work, they obtained impressive results. They determined that a dendrimer encapsulated rhodium carbonyl cluster process was more effective in turning this chemical into a much more useful and valuable one under considerably less harsh and more environmentally friendly conditions than previous work had reported.

Scholar Spotlight: Joseph Kummer

Astronaut Scholar Joseph Kummer's dissertation work has focused on the feasibility of integrating a cross-flow fan into an airplane wing for propulsion and flow control. The cross-flow fan looks similar to a squirrel cage; and in his design, air is drawn into the fan from the top surface and expelled out at the trailing edge as a jet. It turns out that this configuration is virtually stall-free, allowing operation at extremely high angles of attack up to 40 degrees, and producing 3-4 times the lift of a conventional wing. It is also up to 30% more efficient in cruise, even at over double the thickness.

He envisions this technology breeding an entirely new generation of aircraft, possibly making personal air vehicles a reality, with shorter takeoff distances, higher speeds, and significantly greater interior space than current general aviation airplanes. Joseph received the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation's award from 2000–2004 while at Syracuse University.

Scholar Spotlight: Christine Hammock

Christina Hammock, 2000–2002 Astronaut Scholar from North Carolina State University, is currently a Research Associate and Cryogenics Technician for Raytheon Polar Services Company, living and working at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Her position there will last one year, encompassing a busy summer season of preparation, and a longer isolated winter of supporting science experiments.

Unique aspects of living in the South Pole include the endless showering of auroras, a single sunrise and sunset to mark the year's passage and a sky of abundant with stars. Christina reflects that perhaps the same kinds of celestial marvels also inspired the exceptional group of people that, in part, made her journey to the South Pole possible through their dedication to promoting the dreams of wonderers and explorers like her.

Scholar Spotlight: Emily Eelkema

Emily Eelkema, 1998–1999 Astronaut Scholar from the University of Minnesota, has recently been promoted to Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Project. She will be one of three mission managers in charge of running the twin rovers. "The mission manager oversees the daily planning process," says Eelkema. "They also monitor overall spacecraft health." Eelkema has been at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 5 years. She joined the MER project just before they landed on Mars last year.