It Really is Rocket Science

Hey there! My name is Mitchell Kurnell and I would like to start by thanking you for visiting my blog! I am going to be writing here fairly regularly to talk about my experiences living and working in the US at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a Research Associate. A lot of people have asked me how I got this position, so I am going explain a little bit about myself, who I am and how that lead me to where I am today.

I have been interested in space for a while and have been looking for a way to make it a part of my life for a while. I remember being young and playing with the LEGO Mars sets and dreaming about space and planetary exploration; dreams which were enhanced when I was about 12 years old and my dad bought a telescope for my brother and I to use. The three of us would spend hours outside looking at different craters on the moon and whatever planets happened to be in favourable orbits at the time. This passion for space coupled with my enjoyment of physics in high school led me towards pursuing a degree in engineering.

I have just completed my third year of Engineering Physics and Society at McMaster University which has really been the basis of my working at NASA this summer. At McMaster, I have always been looking for ways to extend my involvement beyond just going to classes. This started in first year for me because I had to commute to campus and I was looking for something more to justify the half hour drive to school each day. I started volunteering with the McMaster Engineering Society (MES) as a First Year Representative and that really set everything else in motion. Working with the MES has allowed me to develop essential soft skills which really don’t get taught in a traditional engineering program. I continued my involvement with the MES up until this summer so that I can focus on another project I joined last January, the McMaster NEUDOSE Team.

NEUDOSE is a micro satellite being designed by science and engineering students at McMaster under the guidance of Dr. Andrei Hanu with the goal of studying harmful ionizing radiation in low Earth orbit. I was assigned to the Electrical Power System team which is responsible for powering the entire satellite. This lined up great with what I had been learning in my courses and I felt confident in my abilities to be a contributing member of this team.

My participation in this team is essentially what has allowed me to have this opportunity at NASA. Dr. Hanu currently works at the Goddard Space Flight Center as a Post Doctoral Fellow and after discussing with him about the prospect of hosting me at NASA, invited me to come down for the summer! So I will throw a huge thank you out to Andrei because without him starting the NEUDOSE team, I wouldn’t have this opportunity.

That is more or less a quick overview of who I am and what I am up to this summer. If you are interested in keeping up with me on this journey, please feel free to follow this blog and follow me on Instagram and Twitter @mitchellatnasa. Thanks for reading!