NASA DEVELOP National Program

NASA DEVELOP National Program
Agency overview
Formed	1999
Headquarters	NASA Langley Research Center
Agency executive	Michael Ruiz, Program Manager
Parent agency	NASA Applied Sciences Program
Website
NASA DEVELOP National Program

DEVELOP is a training and development program sponsored by NASA's Earth Sciences Applied Sciences Program. Headquartered at NASA Langley Research Center, DEVELOP has teams at nine locations around the country, and one in Mexico. Participants work with advisors and mentors to learn about the application of NASA Earth Science and remote sensing during three 10-week terms.

DEVELOP is based in the Earth Science Mission, which has the goal to "Develop a scientific understanding of Earth’s system and its response to natural or human-induced changes, and to improve prediction of climate, weather, and natural hazards." With a unique focus on community concerns, DEVELOP offers participants the chance to work with remote sensing to research real-world problems.

History of DEVELOP

In 1998, two students participating in the Langley Aerospace Research Summer Scholars (LARSS) Program and one student participating in the Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program (SHARP) at NASA Langley Research Center co-authored the white paper Practical Applications of Remote Sensing (Bauer et al., 1998). At that time, the Digital Earth Initiative, a federal inter-agency project dedicated to creating a virtual representation of the Earth to further human understanding of the world, was piloting an effort to increase public access to federal information about the Earth and the environment. A proposal combining NASA’s Digital Earth Initiative and the students’ paper advocated the formation of a student program, and in 1999 DEVELOP was formed.

Team Locations

DEVELOP teams are located across the United States and into Mexico. Six US locations are association with NASA centers - Langley Research Center, Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Stennis Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Four are at regional US locations - Mobile County Health Department in Mobile, AL, Wise County Clerk of Court Office in Wise, VA, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative in Chicago, IL. There are also two leveraged academic institutions - one in St. Louis, MO, at Saint Louis University, and the other located in Monterrey, N.L., Mexico, at Tecnologico de Monterrey (Monterrey Tech). Each team location varies in size and participant educational background.

DEVELOP Admissions

Admission to the program is based upon a competitive application process. Applications are available on the DEVELOP website (http://develop.larc.nasa.gov/). Eligible applicants are currently enrolled in high school through graduate school levels and have a minimum 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale. DEVELOP accepts applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds. In particular, students with a strong interest in environmental, atmospheric, and Earth sciences, computer science, math, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and remote sensing are encouraged to apply.

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.