It has been Emma Martinez’s lifelong dream to be an aerospace engineer, and this summer, she’s had her first opportunity to get her foot in the door. Of 3,000 applicants, Martinez — an incoming Cor Jesu Academy senior — was one of 111 high schoolers selected for a virtual internship position at NASA as a STEM Enhancement in Earth and Space Science (SEES) intern.
Martinez found the internship listing online and submitted her application in February. She was inspired by her time in a course called Honors Independent Science Research at Cor Jesu, where she spent a semester working on space and biology research. She was the only person to take the course that semester.
“It was a solo kind of class. My project sparked curiosity, so it got me interested in pursuing more research in the future,” Martinez said about the Cor Jesu class. “My project was the effects of simulated microgravity and red light on protein production in duckweed. I was running tests over the semester, testing duckweed as a potential space biology crop for the International Space Station.”
After her time in that course, Martinez knew with certainty that she wanted to pursue a summer opportunity. The application for the internship was due in February, and it included the submission of her transcript, a few short essay questions, a teacher recommendation and an introductory video.
Martinez is on a team of six high school interns from all around the country, with students from California, Illinois, Indiana, Texas and New Jersey. Their team, led by team mentor Olivia Cooper, is “honing in on a specific open cluster in space that hasn’t been studied for 50-60 years in the scientific community,” according to Martinez.
Alongside that project, Martinez takes part in earth, space and Python programming modules, which are educational modules that teach her more about these categories and how to implement them within her project.
“I’m really excited to work with such highly driven and motivated people who are in pursuit of STEM careers in the future, such as engineers, astronomers and astrophysicists,” Martinez said. “This has been a tremendous opportunity for me, especially in high school, to get my foot in the door.”
The various NASA intern projects will be presented at a symposium from July 20-21, and Martinez anticipates that she will also be presenting her project in December at the annual Advancing Earth and Space Sciences (AGU) meeting.
Next year at Cor Jesu, Martinez will take classes like AP Chemistry, physics and calculus. She hopes to continue exploring internships as she begins her college search — Martinez plans to double major in aerospace engineering and vocal performance.
“I’m excited to see where I end up for college,” Martinez said. “I hope to continue undergraduate research wherever I end up. … I hope to one day work at NASA as an aerospace engineer or research scientist, all the while being a part-time operatics or classical singer on the side.”
