ICNS student selected for National Indigenous Space Academy program and NASA internship

PhD candidate and Palawa man, Ted Vanderfeen has been offered a once in a lifetime internship with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory after being selected for Monash University’s National Indigenous Space Academy (NISA), supported by the Australian Space Agency.

Ted has recently begun his PhD journey at the University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS), under the mentorship of Associate Professor Gregory Cohen, Deputy Director of ICNS as his academic supervisor.

Ted will be partnered with a scientist or engineer mentor at NASA’s JPL in California for a 10-week internship to complete projects outlined by NASA mentors while also contributing to current NASA JPL space missions.

Ted says his love of engineering when he was a child inspired him to study engineering at university, as he has always had a keen interest in space, and often opened and pulled apart everything mechanical to learn how it worked.

“Engineering is in my blood. My dad was an automation engineer when I was growing up and he would bring his work home. I would always get curious as to how things worked, I pulled them apart and destroyed all the stuff he bought home – much to his dismay – but looking back, I don’t think I’d want to do anything else.”

Applying for the NISA program after completing his Bachelor of Engineering degree with 1st Class Honours with the University’s School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Ted said the NISA opportunity came at the right time.

“It was very serendipitous timing, it felt like the opportunity that I had spent my entire degree here at Western Sydney University preparing for. It’s a dream come true to get to spend 10 weeks at NASA JPL and really immerse myself in that experience… It’s like Disneyland for engineers,” he said.

Prior to flying out to the United States to begin his NASA JPL internship, Ted completed a ‘Space Boot Camp’ preparation program run by Monash University’s Faculty of IT covering aerodynamics, robotics, rovers, astrophysics, planetary science, engineering, computer and earth sciences as well as past and current space exploration missions at NASA.