Launching into new career focus

As an engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Satellite Operations Facility in Maryland, Jennifer White ’03 has been working as a satellite simulator operations engineer for three years. She uses two flight simulators, the Flight Vehicle Simulator (FVS) and the Flight Vehicle Test Suite (FVTS).

“The entire time I’ve been working with the simulators, I would rather have been on the other side,” she says. And now her wish is coming true with a series of planned satellite launches.

White was a physics and mathematics major at Ripon and earned a master’s degree in physics from Ohio State University. But she became disconnected from her chosen field after graduate school. For several years, she taught and worked in non-physics-related jobs.

This left her in an awkward position — most employers were looking for someone either fresh out of college or someone with experience. White fit neither category. But thanks to a connection she forged during her time at Ripon, White found her current job.

“Networking and a great attitude are what helped me get to where I am today,” she says. “I 100-percent know that going to Ripon College helped with that.” At Ripon, White participated in the internship program NASA Academy. She got into the program because of recommendations written by her professors at Ripon. Completing the program allowed White to join the NASA Academy Alumni Association.

“During the summer of 2014, I got an email from another member, whom I met at the NASA Academy, advertising an opening on her team. I contacted her for more information, and she put in a good word for me,” White says. “I had no previous experience, but with her recommendation and my liberal arts background, I got the job.”

The FVS simulator on which White works allows NOAA to plan maneuvers for its weather satellite before executing them. These maneuvers involve an average of two annual burns to keep the spacecraft in the correct orbit, monthly rolls which allow an instrument to use the moon for calibration, and aversion maneuvers to avoid debris. Her work involves mostly programming and computer science.

Currently, the only active satellite is S-NPP, but NOAA is planning to launch a series of satellites, collectively called JPSS, in upcoming years. The first in the JPSS series, J1, is set to be launched in late September

2017. S-NPP will continue to orbit with J1 until J2 is prepared to replace it. With more satellites orbiting at once, NOAA will be able to collect more accurate climate data. If everything goes according to plan, there will be multiple satellites in the air, which means more people will be needed to coordinate them.

White is training to be one of those people, called an orbit analyst. Instead of setting up the simulator, she now will be planning that maneuver. “It has been drastically more interesting,” she says. “You learn what’s happening instead of just dealing with software issues. To be on the other side and actually doing the maneuvers on the spacecraft is way more exciting.”

Although this new position requires a lot of learning, White is not daunted. “Currently I’m enjoying the learning process,” she says. “One of the most valuable things I learned at Ripon College was how to learn. I majored in physics and math and then went on to get a master’s degree in physics, but I’m doing the job of an aerospace engineer. I feel like the liberal arts background helps me be more flexible and able to think outside the box. I’m looking forward to being able to take those skills and use them to work on projects to help make our maneuver planning more efficient.”

MEGAN SOHR ’18

Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Spencer Reisbick ’14 is a Ph.D. student in chemical physics at the University of Minnesota. He works on electronic device materials so small that they cannot be seen by most microscopes.

“We are able to look at heat moving through the materials at time frames 1 billion times faster than a second,” Reisbick says. His research group is interested in revealing the temporal domain of non-equilibrium processes such as heat dissipation, phase transitions and material relaxations. These events occur much faster than normal imaging techniques, such as cameras, can observe.

“(We use) an instrument known as Ultrafast Electron Microscopy (UEM), which allows us to directly visualize what happens in nano-sized materials at ultrafast time scales,” he says. “I am currently researching electronic materials which can have applications in the future in the device industry such as completely efficient conductance and phase state memory. I hope to eventually work in industry analyzing electronic components before they enter the device application stage.”

He says the ability to develop a fundamental understanding of simple processes such as heat transfer and light propagation are vital in everyday applications such as electronics. “Being able to further the development of these applications requires a solid base understanding of physical phenomena, and I find enjoyment in working on difficult problems which assist in revealing the unknowns which we are still unable to control,” he says.

“My liberal arts education has been vital in developing a variety of talents which are required to be successful as a scientist,” Reisbick says. “At Ripon, I was offered leadership opportunities as well as courses outside of my skill set which pushed me to problem-solve in ways I otherwise wouldn’t have had. Ripon prepared me extremely well for my journey in graduate school because I was forced to collaborate with many different viewpoints, past experiences and backgrounds. The diverse culture at Ripon encouraged me to join organizations which provided interactions with potential business leaders, lawyers and coaches who pushed me to find alternative problemsolving techniques.”