Four Daniel Guggenheim School students have just learned that their summer 2019 internships at commercial aerospace companies will also include a year of one-on-one mentorship from an aerospace industry professional.
The four -- Sahaj Patel, Shravan Hariharan, Patrick Miga, and Josh Ingersoll – were named as 2019 Matthew Isakowitz Fellows.
Now in its second year, the Isakowitz Fellowship annually recognizes exceptional undergraduate and graduate students pursuing aerospace careers.
This year, four of the 25 Isakowitz Fellows come from Georgia Tech’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. Their summer internships will culminate in Los Angeles at a two-day Isakowitz summit where they will meet and network with other fellows, tour several commercial aerospace companies, and learn more about the latest developments in commercial spaceflight from top innovators in the field.
Sahaj Patel
Professional networking is something Sahaj Patel knows a thing or two about.
The AE third-year undergrad networked his way into his current internship, at Blue Origin, by impressing recruiters at Sigma Gamma Tau's 2017 AE Career Fair. Now, as an Isakowitz Fellow, he has been matched with Accion Systems in Boston, where he will be working with a team that is creating a new ion engine to bring electric propulsion to satellites of all sizes.
"I’m not sure what I’ll be doing just yet, but I’m excited to get the experience and I've wanted to try out a startup-like work environment."
Patel is excited to meet his Isakowitz mentor Joe Landon, vice president of Advanced Program Development at Lockheed Martin, who has both an aerospace engineering degree and an MBA.
"I think he can teach me a lot about the business of aerospace," he said.
He is also excited to meet the other Isakowitz fellows and mentors at the summit, scheduled for the end of summer.
"I'm looking forward to learning more about the business and development side of commercial space and being face-to-face with a real astronaut," said Patel.
As an intern, Patel is not in formal classes this semester, but he hasn't forgotten the need to challenge himself. He's found himself reading "Rocket Propulsion Elements," a popular rocketry book recommended by some of his friends in the Yellow Jacket Space Program (he's a member).
This is not his first foray into commercial space, and it will likely not be his last. During the summer of 2018, Patel interned at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in flight avionics. He also researched new flight computer programs used on CubeSats to allow them to go further into space and offer more radiation protection than current models
Shravan Hariharan
For aspiring astronaut Shravan Hariharan, the Isakowitz Fellowship is filling a huge void in an already impressive resume.
The third-year undergrad from New Jersey has already had space-related internships at NASA, Northrop Grumman, and (this semester) Blue Origin. He’s attended every lecture given by an astronaut on the Tech campus. He’s even started studying Russian during his free time because that’s a language that all astronauts have to learn.
But the Isakowitz Fellowship is offering him an opportunity that outpaces even his wildest dreams.
“They matched me with a former astronaut for my mentor - John Grunsfeld, who flew on five Space Shuttle missions,” said Hariharan, whose Isakowitz internship will send him to Seattle’s Spaceflight Industries this summer.
“I want to ask him [Grunsfeld] what I ask every astronaut: to describe the feeling of being in space. Every astronaut has a different way of putting it into words, and it’s interesting to hear how they do it… I’d also like to ask him about the astronaut training and selection process, to hear what helped him prepare.”
Knowing the competition for those coveted space suits is fierce, Hariharan is careful not to hang all his dreams on that outcome. His current and previous internships – on the engine team at Blue Origin, developing membrane telescopes at NASA, and as a systems engineer for the Cygnus Spacecraft Team at Northrop Grumman – have already given him a great deal of satisfaction.
“I like to learn in classes and in the lab, but there’s nothing like bringing it into industry, where it goes to work,” he said. “I can’t wait to work with the mission management team at Spaceflight this summer. I’ll be developing engineering plans and integration testing for their customers.”
Patrick Miga
Chicago native Patrick Miga is looking forward to his Isakowitz-sponsored internship at Altius Space Machine, where he’ll work on space habitat systems. He’ll also meet a professional mentor who needs no introduction on the AE School campus.
“I’m really excited. I get to work with Bobby Braun, [former AE professor and the current dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder],” he said.
“He’s doing exactly the kind of stuff I’m interested in – planetary exploration and systems engineering. And he was chief technologist at NASA…”
This will not be the first time that Miga has tried his hand at real-world problems. The AE undergrad previously did two co-op rotations with ATA Engineering in San Diego. During his first rotation, he did finite element modeling for a variety of aerospace systems. On his second stint, he worked with the company’s clients, installing strain gauges and accelerometers on vehicles.
He also interned two summers at the University of Tennessee’s Space Institute, where he assisted in the development of their new wind tunnel – the hypersonic Mach 4 Ludwieg Tube.
Long-term, Miga is eyeing grad school and a possible career in the space exploration industry or in national defense.
“And, yeah, I really do want to go into space, but probably not on a long mission, like one to Mars,” he said. “I think in the future, it’s possible that I’ll be able to go to the Moon and back, for work.”
Josh Ingersoll
New York native Josh Ingersoll will be spending his summer interning with OneWeb Satellites, a joint-venture between One Web and Airbus that is building a network of satellites to provide affordable high-speed Internet access the globe. He’ll be working with the systems engineering team to perform trade studies and finalize the designs for the network of satellites that will soon be launched into space.
Through the fellowship Ingersoll was matched with mentor John Gedmark, co-founder and CEO of Astranis – a satellite telecommunication company located in San Francisco.
Ingersoll has known he wanted to study aerospace at Georgia Tech since he was a high school sophomore. He earned his undergraduate degree here in May of 2018 and is currently working in the Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL) with Prof. Brian Gunter as a graduate student.
“Georgia Tech was my number one school. After I was notified that I 'got in' I made my first deposit two hours later. I was ready to go."
And he hasn’t stopped yet.
Previously, Ingersoll interned ay NASA Ames where he helped to publish “State of the Art of Small Spacecraft Technology," a report that catalogs all the CubeSat parts - and their specs - that are in development. The second half of his internship was spent in the technical education satellite lab on CubeSat manufacturing.
Ingersoll also interned with General Electric Aviation in the configurations management team working on test engines and updating designs on a large-scale project that involved more than 300 engineers and more than one million engine parts.
“It was nice to work physically on an engine and be arm deep in an engine checking out the specs and making sure clearance was met every day,” said Ingersoll.
Before he leaves for his Isakowitz internship, Ingersoll will spend a week in Scotland with the Georgia Tech Glee Club on a country-wide singing tour.
“The Glee Club is what helps me manage the stress of school, and I always love to share how much the Glee Club means to me with others," said Ingersoll.