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California State University,
Fresno senior Lauren McQuone has always set her sights high. The
Smittcamp Family Honors College meteorology major is stretching even
earthly bounds in her latest pursuit. This summer, she will travel to
the Johnson Space Center in Houston to serve a paid internship with
NASA’s Undergraduate Student Research Program.
McQuone, a Fresno native, also is an Air Force ROTC cadet who will be
commissioned as a second lieutenant when she graduates in December.
She said she was shocked and pleased to win the internship. “It’s really
a big deal,” she said.
McQuone will be working with the Crew Earth Observations Group within
NASA’s Image Science & Analysis Group. She will begin serving the highly
competitive 10-week internship in June. She will help to provide
metadata content for images of the earth, images that astronauts have
taken and downloaded from the International Space Station. Metadata – or
data about data – is a system by which NASA derives more information
about an image’s content.
A second project will require McQuone to determine which glaciers in the
Chile/Argentina Alps have been documented with space imagery.
The experience, she said, will benefit her as she pursues a career in
meteorology. McQuone wants to specialize in “space weather.”
“It’s a highly specialized field that not too many people get into,” she
said. “Space weather is at the very edge of what you think of as the
earth’s atmosphere.” Apart from learning how such high-level weather
patterns affect the earth, “it’s also about finding out what’s outside
our atmosphere,” she said. “I want to get out as far as I can.”
McQuone said she grew interested in space in high school, lured largely
by its mysteries.
“Space is the new frontier,” she said. “I like the fact we don’t know
very much about it. I really like studying and I like academics. Just
the idea of learning as much as possible – I get a kick out of it.”
While Fresno State does not have a formalized meteorology degree,
McQuone worked with faculty and administrators to develop a program for
herself.
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