NASA internship fuses academic research and industry application

An internship with NASA gave Scotty McGee a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between her academic research and industry application. The third year PhD student has been exploring applications of AI in academic team settings and will now bring the AI Coach to the real world.

“As an undergrad I was drawn to the design process and project based courses,” she explained. “This internship not only gives me the opportunity to work on an exciting NASA project with a great team of people but gives me the chance to independently build an AI Coach to help their design process.”

McGee, advised by Chris McComb, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Jon Cagan, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has conducted multiple human subjects studies in design courses to validate her approach with students. At NASA, she has the opportunity to build an AI Coach tailored to a NASA team’s needs and study its use over time. This experience aligns closely with her PhD work, providing valuable feedback that will inform the next steps of her research and further refine the AI Coach for broader applications.

Until now, McGee has only studied how students use the AI Coach in very controlled settings so she believes she will gain valuable insight by observing corporate design teams at work and collecting feedback.

As part of the Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) team, McGee is also working on the Aerial Aid project, which focuses on developing drones for emergency medical services. The project’s goal is to create drones that can automatically assess the scene of an accident, determine the number of patients and their conditions, and communicate this information to EMS personnel. This enables paramedics to arrive well-prepared, equipped with the resources they need, potentially saving time and lives

“I’m grateful for the opportunities that the NASA CAS group is providing me to study how the AI Coach can be implemented outside of the university setting. The early stage projects in this group provide a strong platform to build from and I’m looking forward to seeing it evolve.”