Our universe is still full of unknowns. How did it begin? Is
there life beyond our planet?
We don’t have all the answers — despite new discoveries and
new ways of thinking about and exploring Earth, our solar system, and
beyond.
Across Georgia Tech’s campus, hundreds of women are crunching numbers on
whiteboards, building spacecraft, running computer simulations, developing
international policy, and exploring how human experiences in space are
reimagined through science fiction. The inquisitive explorers are looking
skyward for answers to these and other cosmic questions, taking on the challenge
to investigate the great unknowns of space.
With Atlanta hosting the Miss Universe competition this weekend, we want the
world to meet the women right here at Tech who are exploring the universe, each
in her own exciting way. They are our very own cadre who give new meaning to the
title “Miss Universe" in 2019.
Sara Miller
Ph.D. candidate
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
“I’ve always been attracted to
fields where there are a lot of unknowns.”
It started with family vacations to space centers and museums. That led to a
summer high school experience with NASA. She says she was hooked on the great
beyond. Then Miller ended up at Georgia Tech.
As an undergraduate, she worked on plasma propulsion engineering projects with
NASA — one of six rotations with the agency. Two took place at NASA Johnson,
three at NASA Glenn, and one at NASA Marshall.
Miller has rocketed into research. Specifically, she is aiming to better
understand the degradation of spacecraft electric propulsion engines.
“Operating these engines in the harsh environment of outer space over extended
periods of time leads to a deterioration of engine materials, which is often the
life-limiting process for electric propulsion systems. Understanding the
mechanisms behind engine degradation will allow us to build better propulsion
systems that can operate longer, pushing spacecraft farther into space than
we've ever been,” Miller says.
In her first year of graduate school, she was recognized by the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for being the only student author
working with a team of fulltime NASA employees (on research about the
International Space Station’s electrical power system.)
Mariel Borowitz
Assistant Professor
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
“I don’t know how anyone could
look up at the stars and not be fascinated.”
“I’ve been intrigued about space since the 4th grade.”
Borowitz studied aerospace engineering as an undergraduate at MIT. She went on
to earn a master’s degree in international science and technology policy from
George Washington University and a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of
Maryland. She combines these fields at Georgia Tech as a researcher and teacher
examining the intersections of international policy and space exploration.
“I think having an awareness about how decisions are made matters. What is the
legal structure? What funding is available? What other countries can we work
with and what are their technical availabilities? Our next stop is probably the
moon, and part of that is because that’s where every other country wants to go,”
Borowitz says.
She looks in-depth at international space policy issues, including
international cooperation in Earth-observing satellites and satellite
data-sharing policies, human space exploration strategy, and developments in
space security and space situational awareness.
“It looks like the commercial companies SpaceX and Boeing are about a year away
from launching humans to space. It will be so fascinating to see what happens
with that and what it means for space travel.”
Borowitz served as a policy analyst for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
headquarters in Washington, D.C. from 2016 to 2018. Her book, Open Space:
The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data, was
published by MIT Press in 2017. Keeping one eye on the stars has led her to a
successful career.
“Whatever your passion is, just keep following it and see where it takes
you.”
Dawn Andrews
Ph.D. candidate
Aerospace Engineering
As an undergraduate and master’s student, she’s already done four rotations
with SpaceX. She has also already been a hardware-responsible engineer — she
designed a specific component of a launched vehicle and monitored it after it
was sent to space.
Andrews works in the Space System Designs Lab at Georgia Tech and has played an
integral role in projects that have been launched to space, including RANGE — a
cube satellite developed to improve spacecraft positioning in space using GPS,
atomic clocks, and laser ranging.
She’s now focused on building hardware, currently at work on the Lunar
Flashlight program developing a propulsion system for a satellite that will help
scan for evidence of water on the moon. These will be some of the first
small-scale satellites and scientific payloads to be sent here.
“We’re building this at a lab here at Georgia Tech. We’re going through the
NASA design reviews. We are the responsible engineers for this mission. It’s so
exciting to say my name is on that and it’s going to go to the moon.”
“My career will start with SpaceX and I will continue to work on hardware
design with the commercial space program. This means I’ll be genuinely starting
my dream job.”
Saumya Sharma
Undergraduate student
Aerospace Engineering
“My focus is in spacecraft and
launch vehicles — specifically in structural analysis.”
Sharma is currently working on printed circuit boards, the custom-created
computer components for tools used in space. In particular, she is working on a
LiDar satellite device that could be launched into space to gather topographical
information about celestial bodies. Currently, devices such as the Mars Rover
gather data in real time on the ground. Satellite devices like the one Sharma is
working on could collect that same data from space.
Sharma was one of 35 individuals from across the U.S. to be named a Brooke
Owens Fellow, an award given each year to college-age women who show promise in
the aerospace field.
Susana Morris
Assistant Professor
School of Literature, Media, and Communication
“To be black and not only envision yourself in the future but at the center of
the future — to be the agent and subject of the future, and not relegated to the
primeval past, used as props or pawns, or disappeared altogether — is an act of
resistance and liberation.”
As a young child, Morris says she started exploring worlds beyond our own, and
even outside our reality.
“I voraciously read everything I could get my hands on but was particularly
drawn to science fiction and fantasy. I loved Stars Wars and Star
Trek and was generally a nerd. There came a point, however, when my
emerging racial consciousness collided with my love of sci-fi and I wondered,
where are all the black people in the future?”
Morris says she remembered Nichelle Nichols, Billy Dee Williams, and Whoopi
Goldberg, but largely saw a lack of representation in science fiction, and her
interest waned. It wasn’t until high school that she discovered the work of
Octavia Butler (Parable of the Sower) that sparked Morris’ interest in
what she now understands as Afrofuturism.
“I am a scholar of black feminism, black media studies, and Afrofuturism. In my
current book project, I am exploring how black women in literature, art,
activism, and media understand and connect Afrofuturism and feminism,
particularly in regard to climate change and the Anthropocene,” Morris
explains.
Morris is an associate professor in Tech’s School of Literature, Media, and
Communication. She is also a co-founder and contributing writer for the popular
feminist blog, The Crunk Feminist
Collective. In these roles, she persistently questions what representation
looks like in science fiction and why it matters.
“Speculative thinking, particularly in the arts,” Morris says, “is a catalyzing
force that is not only fun and exciting, but also inspiring and transformative
for a whole host of reasons.”
Tamara Bogdanović
Associate Professor
Physics
"We want to understand how these black holes work. At this point we don’t have
a way of making one, or knowing how to control one, but in the future that could
become very important for us. That’s just part of what I’m researching.”
Bogdanović studies how black holes interact with their environment and with
each other. She is a theorist, which means she spends a lot of time doing
calculations and building models — using computer simulations to model the
things in space that we cannot see. She also teaches undergraduate courses on
black holes, relativity, and astrophysics at Tech.
“We think that pretty much every galaxy in the universe hosts a super massive
black hole at the center. We know that massive stars end their lives as black
holes. Black holes are so fascinating because they can affect everything else we
study in space. Black holes create conditions for a lot of energy and radiation
to be released. It could become so hot that its host galaxy can no longer form
stars,” she explains.
Bogdanović collaborates with researchers in Tech’s Center for Relativistic
Astrophysics. She also teaches in the College of Sciences and was last year’s
recipient of the Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award.
“Black holes are very efficient at extracting energy from gas that spirals into
it — much more efficient than nuclear reaction, currently our most effective
extracting energy. Imagine if we figure out how to harness that capability from
black holes.”
Laura Cadonati
Professor
Physics
“These initial detections opened a
new window of the universe and gave us our first glimpse.”
Laura Cadonati is a professor in the School of Physics and has been featured on
CNN, the Washington Post, and the BBC for her research on intergalactic
phenomena. She’s also part of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory (LIGO) team from Georgia Tech that helped discover gravitational
waves.
Three of Cadonati’s publications, with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which
appeared in Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical Journal
Letters, helped usher in the era of multi-messenger gravitational-wave
astronomy. The papers chronicled LIGO’s first detection of a gravitational
wave produced by the merger of black
holes in 2015, the result of two black holes crashing into each other
nearly 1.5 billion years ago. The waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime,
were originally predicted in 1915 by Albert Einstein in his general theory of
relativity.
“Those were huge milestones. These initial detections opened a new window of
the universe and gave us our first glimpse,” says Cadonati. “This new chapter
will allow us to create a path that will bring our field to its full
potential.”
LIGO has continued scanning space for evidence. Earlier this year detectors
registered gravitational waves from what appears likely to be a crash between
two neutron stars — the dense remnants of massive stars that had exploded. They
also believe to have detected a wave that resulted from the collision of a
neutron star and black hole, an event never before witnessed.
Cadonati was appointed as LIGO’s first-ever deputy spokesperson. She also
fosters new LIGO collaborations with partners around the world as the group
continues to explore the data pouring in from activity in outer space.
After a short break for upgrades in November, LIGO’s observatories are back up
and running. That means Cadonati and her team have more numbers to crunch. But
for now, each new detection brings the chance for new insight into the
universe.
“The future is gravitational-wave bright!” she exclaims.
CREDITS
Photography: Allison Carter
Editor: Stacy Braukman
Writer: Steven Norris
Design: Monet Fort