Image: Pascal Lee and Finn Braun at ISDC 2024. Photo by Madhu Thangavelu, NSS.

Two high school interns funded by NASA’s Neurodiversity Network (N3) presented their work from Summer 2023 at the recent National Space Society (NSS) International Space Development Conference (ISDC-2024), held in Los Angeles, CA (May 23-26, 2024). Both interns were mentored by Dr. Pascal Lee, Planetary Scientist at the SETI Institute and Chair of the Mars Institute, who accompanied them to the conference.

Intern Finn Braun, who is now a high school junior, co-authored the paper “An ATV for the Moon” with Dr. Lee. He worked with a CAD program to develop the concept, which might be of interest to NASA’s Artemis Program in the future. Intern Krista Heinemann, who has now graduated high school, co-authored the paper “New location for the ‘Noctis Landing’ candidate human landing site on Mars” in which she used NASA data about the Noctis Landing site provided by Dr. Lee to refine a possible landing location for future human missions to the surface of Mars. In addition to the oral presentations they gave, Braun and Heinemann lead-authored technical publications reporting their research. Braun and Heinemann were part of the 2023 N3 intern cohort, which included 19 other high school students, each paired with a NASA Subject Matter Expert as a mentor. The N3 internship program is now beginning its fourth summer with a new cohort of 21 additional interns.