10/4/2023 Katelin Chong
Written by Katelin Chong
AE junior Aaliyah Gaffey has always enjoyed math and science. Over the past year, though, she has taken her passion to another level by picking up two internships with NASA.
Her love for engineering started when her pre-calculus teacher approached her and introduced the idea of the robotics team to her.
“He told me if you really like math and building things, you should do robotics first. That kind of spurred me to think, ‘I really like this. Why don't I do this as a career?’” Gaffey said. “Then I realized how there are so many options with aerospace. I'm able to be pre-med and study aerospace and combine two of my interests.”
Gaffey is an EMT for her hometown ambulance and also conducts research on muscle loss in space flight with Dr. Marni Boppart, a professor in the Carle College of Medicine at Illinois. Dr. Boppart believes we need more people to study the physiological changes of the human body.
“I really like human-centered design in aerospace,” she said. “Spacesuits are probably my second favorite interest in spaceflight because spacesuits are really just as complex as a spacecraft, but in the size of a human.”
Gaffey’s first internship with NASA was during this past spring, her second one going throughout the summer. Her spring co-op was centered on human-powered rovers, while her summer internship dealt with space suits and focused on thermal analysis of NASA’s xEMU spacesuit. In both internships, her involvement in robotics greatly aided her.
“I was also a mentor for my hometown's FIRST Robotics team, so it was interesting seeing the transition from being a student on the team to leading the team. There were a lot of skills I taught them and also skills I gained that translated to my NASA internships–like understanding the engineering “life cycle” of a product, using CAD, and learning how to lead and break long-term projects into smaller milestones,” she said. “Also, working with your hands, using hand tools, power tools, other machinery — all of those skills I would say came from my experience.”
Gaffey’s spring co-op was at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center as a Human Exploration Rover Challenge Engineering intern, where both high school and university students designed human- powered rovers and competed against each other.
“I had to look at tons of technical reports, and I had to evaluate the designs of the rover,” she said. “I learned about their rovers by looking at their subsystems, CAD/FEA, and the actual manufacturing of it.”
For her summer internship, Gaffey was in charge of creating thermal profiles and the test procedure for thermal vacuum chamber testing of the xEMU spacesuit. The spacesuits they are testing are made for the lunar surface and the low Earth orbit micro gravity environment.
“I had to do some thermal modeling and create these test procedures to show their max-cold and max-hot, along with various operational cases we may see with future Artemis missions and I loved that,” she said. “I love both of my internships, but my summer one greatly aligned with my interests. I really liked the fact it was human centered design.”
As a pre-med AE major, Gaffey was happy to see a correlation between her coursework and the work she completed during her internships. Although both stemmed from NASA, her internships had various differences. Due to COVID, her spring co-op was more remote, causing her to only be on-site once or twice a week. Throughout her summer internship, though, she was on-center every day.
“During my first internship, I got to see the culmination of all my work,” she said. “I actually got to watch the competition of the rovers and see the rovers I reviewed, and I would give them feedback and grade their technical reports and presentations.”
Gaffey’s spring co-op was her first aerospace internship. Her past work experience has mainly been focused on medical work.
“I think one of my biggest pieces of advice would be to join a registered student organization,” she said. “I joined Illinois Space Society, and I think it's great. You get some great technical and non-technical skills, make friends, and establish good relations with your peers and with your professors.”
Before working with NASA, Gaffey applied to about 300 other internships. She says that having even one internship can open doors.
“Tied for the biggest piece of advice would be don't box yourself in. Don't let impostor syndrome hold you back. If you have an interest or dreams that you don't think are achievable or realistic, don't let that stop you,” she said. “You have to make your own path. I debated whether or not I could handle aerospace and be pre-med, and I realized this is something I'm really interested in. If you have a plan, you have to stick with it. This is my plan A. I don't want to have a plan B. I'm going to make this work no matter what.”