Today: we bring you Episode 55: Parent Perspectives:  Supporting Student Success in the AIA with Eran Levy and Stephanie Welch. Mr. Eran Levy has a bachelors in business and computer science. He is an expert in sales and marketing strategy and is the lead for customer success at Cisco along with being a dad of two, including son Daniel who recently spoke at the Hawaiian International Conference of Education.  Mrs. Stephanie Welch is a mother of 3 with a bachelor's in both psychology and dietetics. She is currently focused on pursuing her passion for dietetics, but in her spare time, she accompanies Owen, a senior on his international trips to Beijing, Dubai more.

As always, please stay tuned after the episode for our takeaways, and check us on out FB @Go2space

We are fortunate to have interviewed several amazing educators during our time producing this podcast. Today, we add another rock star to that list: Frederick Hermann has been teaching at the MakuaLani Christian Academy on the big island of Hawaii for twelve years. While his passion is aerospace, Frederick holds a BA in English with a minor in mathematics and a Masters in Special Education. Before becoming a high school teacher, Frederick taught GED in prison in NC; tutored adults in reading, math, and police tests; and was lead teacher for a hispanic after-school program. Now, with his leadership, his students have achieved amazing feats including winning the International Grand Prize in 2021 for the National Space Society’s space settlement contest. Additionally, they received top honors in NASA’s HUNCH contest for their work on a food bite dispenser.

This year, Frederick was recognized for his work in space education by the national space club as the Space Educator of the Year, and he and his students are currently working on a ground station that will help our two teams collaborate by receiving telemetry from a Cube Sat.

We were excited to meet him an his students face to face at the Hawaiian International Conference on Education this past January, and we look forward to more work with him. As always, stay tuned after for our takeaways.

Today, we meet with seventh and eighth grade members of the Aerospace and Innovation Academy, our parent company, to discuss one aspect of the unique opportunities our students are eligible to undertake to help separate them from their peers. Argyrios Deanie Vaitsos, Michael Mikati, and Finley Strauss are middle schoolers who have written several technical papers and have even presented at international conferences including the IAC in Dubai, and, most recently the Hawaiian International Conference on Education in Jan. Today, they will share about why they take on adult style responsibilities and how doing so has helped to prepare them for their next steps in life.

If you or a student you know is interested in doing this kind of experiential STEM work, please check out our website at www.aerospacehigh. Org or our social media sites on FB and IG.

As always stay tuned after the show for our takeaways.

Today we meet with Dr. Pradeep Shinde. Dr. Shinde  received his PhD from Florida International University in Mechanical Engineering and is the CEO of SpaceLoon™, a company being built at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's MicaPlex. He has expertise in High-Altitude Balloons and CubeSat instrumentation and has received four awards from NASA-FSGC (NASA-Florida Space Grant Consortium) over the course seven years which helped him with his entrepreneurial goals.

SpaceLoon™ (Space Balloon Technologies) Corp. was founded in 2018, Since then, the technology has been matured by field demonstrations and commercialization risk reductions. SpaceLoon has attracted some investments from friends and family, has verbal confirmation from a few angel investors, an active NSF I-Corps grant and an active NSF SBIR Phase-I submission. At present SpaceLoon is engaged with the student ballooning program with the support from NASA-FSGC

Dr. Shinde has mentored several students in the acquiring of aerospace skills and he pioneered the culture of electric vehicle development by leading competitions for his teams. We look forward to partnering with him in the future and as always, stay tuned for our takeaway.

Today we meet with Matt Voss, the Chief Operations Officer for NearSpace Launch, Inc.

Matt has an extensive professional entrepreneurial background including an MBA in Management and Marketing with 15+ years’ experience in fast-paced dynamic environments.

He has managed and directed million-dollar budgets and held a key role in their aerospace startup in 2006.

He has a passion for developing an effective and influential business culture, has excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and is able to work effectively cross-functional teams. Kevin and I are huge fans of Matt—NSL in general has always willing to work with our students to help them realize their space aspirations

Their website: https://www.nearspacelaunch.com/

Jim Plaxco is a digital artist, creative coder, public speaker, and web consultant. Prior to entering the field of digital art, Jim was an information technology professional and software engineer working for Fortune 100 companies, included AT&T and IBM. In March 2019 Jim became the National Space Society’s Director of Information Systems and in October 2019 became the NSS Data Protection Officer.

Doc Chaves is director of corporate communications for LI-COR Biosciences, a world leader in technology for measuring global climate change and cutting-edge instrumentation for molecular biology research. His main job is translating English to English…helping engineers and scientists share knowledge with a broader audience. He is a volunteer leader for the Big Red Satellite Team, Nebraska’s first team to be selected by NASA to design, build and fly a CubeSat and who were featured in an earlier podcast—you can see link in show notes.

Website for LiCor: https://www.licor.com/

Link to episode 17 with John McClure here: 

Link to episode 19 about BigRedSat here:

Website for Aerospace and Innovation Academy:  www. aerospacehigh.org

Today we meet with Eric Harkleroad— a systems engineer for APeX Systems in New Jersey.  He holds a Master of Engineering in Mechanical & Aerospace and a Bachelor’s degree in Physics both from Princeton University and he previously served as a crew member for a two-week rotation at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS).

A long time Space Ambassador for the National Space Society, Eric gained an interest in engineering due to attending NASA Space Camp in elementary school and taking part in math and science clubs during grades 7-12.

He is also a lifelong fan of science fiction; stories from the Star Trek universe and books by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Phillip K. Dick provided early inspiration.

Today we meet with Julia Brodsky, a STEM education researcher at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, and a Forbes Education contributing author. Ms. Brodsky was not only an NASA astronaut instructor, but she worked as an independent school teacher, an informal math education book author, and an educational consultant for gifted students. Additionally, she is the homeschooling mom of a special needs child (and two other kids). Her academic training is in astrophysics and science education. As the founder of the Art of Inquiry - an interactive online science program for curious pre-teens - Brodsky introduces students to space exploration, astrobiology, cognitive science and AI as means for developing their scientific reasoning, systems thinking, and questioning skills.

Art of Inquiry website https://www.artofinquiry.net/about

Today we meet with ,Matt Orvis who graduated with a Bachelors degree in Physics in 2013, with an Masters in 2015. Since then he's been working with NearSpace Launch building satellites and other space subsystems as a project engineer. Working in a small business, Matt has the privilege of operating in a variety of tasks, including proposal writing, mission design, system layout, assembly/integration, mission operations, data analysis, and writing publications. He's also married with 2 kids, which has proven to be more challenging than building spacecraft.

Matt and NearSpace Launch has been especially instrumental to the development of the WCDT and we know you are going to love today’s episode as much as we do.

NSL website: https://www.nearspacelaunch.com/