Two PhD students earn top National Science Foundation fellowship
Two aerospace graduate students have earned prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program awards.
Annalise Cabra and Asa O'Neal are 2025 recipients of the NSF GRFP awards, which recognize and support outstanding grad students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields who are pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degree.
Awardees receive a $37,000 annual stipend and cost of education allowance for the next three years as well as professional development opportunities.
Find out about their research below:
Annalise Cabra
Advisors:Jim Nabity and Xu Wang
Labs: Bioastronautics Laboratory and the Institute for Modeling Plasmas, Atmospheres, and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT)
Undergraduate Major: Physics, University of Colorado Boulder
My research will focus on the handling of lunar dust to support space exploration, specifically methods for dust mitigation and/or in-situ resource utilization. The dust on the lunar surface gets electrically charged from the solar wind and will mobilize or be lofted, causing it to adhere to various materials like spacesuits or spacecrafts with instruments, solar panels, etc. This then becomes a hazard when trying to carry out space exploration. I will focus on strategies to mitigate this.
I am also interested in in-situ resource utilization and the extraction of local resources on the moon. These steps are crucial for making long-duration space missions more sustainable and affordable by minimizing the need to transport materials from Earth. I will focus on advancing methods for extracting volatiles from the lunar regolith like oxygen to produce materials like propellant or habitats.
Asa O'Neal
Advisor:Iain Boyd
Lab:Nonequilibrium Gas & Plasma Dynamics Laboratory
Undergraduate Major: Mechanical Engineering & Physics, University of Kentucky
My research will focus on modeling air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) systems for spacecraft operating in very low Earth orbit (VLEO). This research will support the development of sustainable, long-duration VLEO missions by enabling in-situ propellant collection and reducing reliance on onboard fuel.