Academics

Electrical engineering graduate student receives NASA fellowship

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Timothy Hackett, who was the spring 2015 electrical engineering student marshal and is now a graduate student in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Penn State, has been awarded a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

Hackett’s fellowship is one of 53 awarded to graduate students in the U.S. and comes in the form of a training grant that pays $74,000 per year for tuition, a student stipend, funding for the research — such as equipment and conferences — and working at a NASA center.

The fellowship supports NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nation’s science, exploration and economic future while providing the nation with a pipeline of highly-skilled scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians to improve America’s technological competitiveness. Recipients show the potential to contribute to this endeavor.

Hackett’s research, advised by electrical engineer professor Sven Bilén, is in collaboration with Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). The team is working on implementing novel algorithms and waveforms on the Space Communications and Navigation Testbed, which contains a number of software defined radios (SDRs) and is located on the International Space Station.

“This is such an honor to have been chosen as a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow,” Hackett said. “It’s a great culminating recognition of all the undergraduate research I did during the past four years.”

Hackett had a number of formative research experiences as an undergraduate, including leading the communication systems team for the Student Space Programs Laboratory’s OSIRIS-3U CubeSat mission and helping to develop a concept for a first-responder radio system with MIT Lincoln Laboratory.  Hackett has been working with SDRs since his sophomore year.

He explained that with traditional radios, they are configured in hardware and once built they generally cannot be changed. In contrast, he said that SDRs have very general radio hardware that is configured in software, which allows flexibility. For example, an SDR could be receiving an FM broadcast at one instant and acting as a cell phone at the next, by just re-flashing the software and changing the antenna.

“As someone who held a NASA fellowship when I was in graduate school, I know how important it was to my own academic development and career path,” said Bilén. “I am confident that Tim’s fellowship will have a similar impact. He will be working closely with and be mentored by researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center and at WPI, and his work ultimately will be implemented on the International Space Station’s SDRs. How many students can claim that in their graduate program?”

Hackett and Bilén began working with WPI on the project in January of this year. On-orbit testing is set for spring and summer of 2016 and completion of the project is scheduled for the end of the fall 2016 semester.

“I’m extremely excited to be collaborating with NASA on the forefront of space technology research,” Hackett said. “I grew up with fighter jets and astronaut posters on my walls, I’ve always loved everything that has to do with air and space. And for me to be working with NASA, it’s really like a dream come true.”

Last Updated September 11, 2015