Graduate Students

Space Policy Institute Alumna Jenn Makins with Astronaut Sunita Williams

 

 

Space Policy Institute Alumna Stephanie Wan with Chinese Taikonaut Zhai Zhigang

Current M.A. Candidates

 

DAVID BELCHER is a first year student at the Space Policy Institute. He graduated from Cleveland State University in 2012 with a B.A. in International Relations and Political Science. His research was primarily centered upon constructing theoretical frameworks for a synthesis between the international relations theories of Neoliberalism and Neorealism, with a focus on investigating the causes of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century conflicts. David recently worked as an intern with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and is currently working as an intern with ATK.

 

CARRIE CHESS is a second year SPI student. In the 111th Congress she
served as Senior Policy Advisor to Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas
(FL-24), with an issue portfolio including NASA, Defense, Energy,
Environment and Appropriations. Prior to that she served as Senior
Legislative Assistant for former Congressman Nick Lampson (TX-22) in
the 110th Congress and as Press Secretary on his successful 2006
campaign. Ms. Chess graduated from the University of Texas at Austin
in 2004 with a B.A. in Government and minor in History.

 

TRAVIS COTTOM is a second year student at the Space Policy Institute. He graduated from GWU in 2010 with a BA in International Affairs. He previously interned for Congressman David Dreier and the Sportfishing Conservancy in California. He previously served as the staff assistant at the Space Policy Institute and as an intern at the Department of State, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, the Office of Missile Defense and Space Policy. He is currently serving as an aerospace analyst at the Tauri Group.

 

SCOTT FREESE is a first year student with the Space Policy Institute. He attained a B.S. in Astrophysics from Lehigh University in 2008, after interning at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in summer 2007, and studying at the University of Edinburgh in the Fall 2007 semester. Upon graduation, Mr. Freese returned to Goddard, employed by SGT, Inc., as a Spacecraft Thermal Coatings and Contamination Engineer. In this position, he continues to support multiple spacecraft projects in all phases of development. He performs laboratory space environment simulation, analysis of thermal control coatings, and was also part of the launch site team for the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center in February 2010.

 

JOEL HICKS is a retired Navy Commander having just completed a 20-year career in nuclear submarines and a member of the Information Professional Community and the Navy Space Cadre. Currently, he works at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST). He is a GWU graduate (B.S. Electrical Engineering) as well as a graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA (M.S. Electrical Engineering) and the Naval War College (M.A. National Security and Strategic Studies). He has completed assignments at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Naval Satellite Operations Center (NAVSOC), and the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC), where he served as Deputy Director. He is currently a member of the Space Policy Institute (SPI).

 

KATE HOWELLS is a first year student at the Space Policy Institute. She graduated from McGill University in 2011 with a BA in Psychology. Her research there focused on hypnotic suggestibility, placebo response and the inhibition of the effects of transcranial brain stimulation. She is currently serving as staff assistant at the Space Policy Institute.

 

JAMES KETTENHOFEN is a third year student at the Space Policy Institute. He spent 10 years in the U.S. Navy where he served as an Air Traffic Controller. He retired 4 years ago from the Federal Aviation Administration's Chicago O'Hare TRACON after 20 years of service. He currently works for SENTEL Corporation as an Aviation Safety Risk Management Analyst supporting the FAA's Office of Safety. He is a graduate (B.S. Business Administration) of Southern New Hampshire University.

MICHAEL LAPIDUS is a second year student at the Space Policy Institute. He graduated from Georgetown in May 2011 with a dual degree in Marketing and Management and a minor in Government. He currently works at SpaceX and focuses on a wide array of legislative advocacy issues. Previously, he served as a Legislative Correspondent in Congress.

 

PHILLIP LARSON is a Research Assistant at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previously Mr. Larson interned at the Department of Commerce's Office of Space Commercialization and briefly worked space issues on Capitol Hill. In 2006, he participated in the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station as part of NASA's Spaceward Bound program. Mr. Larson received his B.S. in Aerospace Studies in 2007 from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and after graduating spent time in Jacksonville working for a defense contractor.

 

KATRINA LAYGO is a first year student at the Space Policy Institute. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2010, receiving her B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies and minor in Geospatial Information Systems and Technology. Her research at UCLA focused on public remote sensing applications for security monitoring in South Asia. Ms. Laygo served as the Center Lead for NASA's Applied Sciences DEVELOP Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she led Earth science research projects mentored by science advisors, extending results to communities. She currently manages and participates in DEVELOP's research projects at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

 

SAMANTHA MARQUART is a second year student in the Space Policy Institute at GWU. She joined SPI after graduating from MIT in 2011 with an S.B. in Political Science focusing on science policy. Samantha spent time with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation before joining the Virgin Galactic team in the fall of 2011. She focuses her research on the emerging commercial spaceflight industry as well as space history. She has worked within SPI on projects with both Professors Henry Hertzfeld and John Logsdon.

 

ROSANNA SMITH graduated with a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009. She was a Research Assistant collaborating with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope research group based at Princeton University and was a NASA intern in the summer of 2009 assisting with the proposal process for a NASA New Frontiers mission. Currently she is working full time in the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory with NASA's Radiation Belt Storm Probe (RBSP) mission.