Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring How We Teach: Lived Experiences, Lessons, And Research About Graduate Instructors By Graduate Instructors, Audrey Tocco, Avaneesh Narla, Elizabeth Giardina, Erin Hughes, Faqryza Ab Latif, Heath J. Wooten, J. Nick Fisk, Jennie Baker, Jonathan Simmons, Kristyn Lue, Melissa Leaym-Fernandez, Natalie Low, Ryan Cheek, Samantha Prado, Sandra Silva-Enos, Shannon Kelley, Stacy Bluth, Taneisha Vilma, Theresa Hice-Fromille, Alexandra Lee, April Athnos, Tianyi Kou-Herrema, Seth Hunt, Ellen Searle, Emile Oshima, Olivia Wilkins, Nathalie Marinho, Matthew Langley, Hima Rawal, Harrison Parker

Exploring How We Teach

This book combines the knowledge of 30 graduate student instructors sharing about how they teach and how they’ve learned how to teach.

Classrooms And Minefields, Jonathan Simmons, Sandra Silva-Enos, Shannon Kelley

Exploring How We Teach

• Graduate school is a time of personal and professional challenges and changes. Engaging in personal reflection about your identity and your goals can help you make sense of these changes.
• Set and enforce your own personal and professional boundaries to protect all the parts of your identity; learn to recognize your own triggers and prioritize your own self-care.
• Create a set of lifelines—people and resources you can be vulnerable with and can turn to for both personal and professional challenges. You will need different lifelines to help with different problems such as identity whiplash or the many landmines you may …

Navigating The Multiple Roles Of Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistants In Pursuit Of Racial Equity, Access, And Justice, Kristyn Lue

Exploring How We Teach

• Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a large role in the socialization of undergraduate students of Color and thus have an impact on their sense of belonging and retention in the STEM fields.
• GTAs occupy a unique role as agents of mathematics socialization, as they are also undergoing their own socialization as doctoral students; in many ways, these roles and this socialization processes constrain GTAs in ways that can be detrimental and marginalizing to students of Color.
• Without being aware of the ways in which systemic racism and white supremacy operate in mathematics spaces, GTAs play a role in upholding …

Validating Students' Diverse Identities, Erin Hughes

Exploring How We Teach

• Recognizing and appreciating students’ identities is important for learning and feelings of academic empowerment.
• The ways in which we can amplify students feeling validated is by being responsive to their needs and respecting who they are both inside and outside the classroom.
• The ways students may feel invalidated are by perpetuating the power dynamics between student and teacher, disregarding students’ mental health, and engaging in inflexible standards.
• Students may feel more able to take on the difficulties of academia when we help them take a strengths-based approach to who they are.

Navigating Evidence And Knowledge Equity, J. Nick Fisk

Exploring How We Teach

• Graduate instructors are awkwardly situated in the academy, which shapes their agency in teaching effectively and developing their own teaching practice.
• Evidence is a potentially fraught construct that is nonetheless necessary and accepted in the academy and can be leveraged in lieu of the often-wanting personal authority of graduate instructors to advocate better teaching practices while also developing themselves professionally.
• Principles of knowledge equity, which is foundationed on a pluralistic epistemological approach to knowledge building, can guide graduate instructors to consider a more expansive view and contextual approach to evidence to better serve students.
• Adoption of evidence-supported practices in the …

Practicing And Researching Pedagogical Metacognition: Benefits For Graduate Instructors During The First Year Of Instruction, Audrey Tocco

Exploring How We Teach

While reading this chapter, graduate student instructors will be able to:

• Define, identify, and explain the benefits of pedagogical metacognition.
• Understand a graduate student instructor’s experience with pedagogical metacognition in a learning community and how it enhanced her reflective and reflexive practices.
• Learn strategies to implement pedagogical metacognition in instruction.

Introduction: Strengthening Graduate Student Teaching Through Community-Based Knowledge Sharing, Sam Clem

Exploring How We Teach

This book combines the knowledge of 30 graduate student instructors sharing about how they teach and how they’ve learned how to teach.

How Can Graduate Instructors Promote Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Their Courses?, Taneisha Vilma, Natalie Low

Exploring How We Teach

In this chapter, readers will find

• Strategies to include Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices when designing the course syllabus.
• Considerations for fostering equity among students through the format and scoring of course assessments.
• Methods to include diverse cultures and contexts in course materials to increase representation.
• Strategies for promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in various components of a course by graduate instructors who have different levels of course autonomy.

Teaching To Fail: Creating Vulnerable Learning Communities To Facilitate Students' Growth, Avaneesh Narla

Exploring How We Teach

• In today’s academic environment, students perceive no room for failure. Thus, they do not explore or take risks, and this limits their growth. As a result, the instructor must create opportunities for failure while mitigating the stress associated with failure.
• Opportunities for failure can be created in the curriculum and course structure through scaffolding, formative assessments, and extensive feedback. The instructor must also adopt a growth mindset when it comes to the students’ abilities.
• Instructors can create an environment where failure is expected by being vulnerable in the classroom themselves and highlighting their failures and subsequent growth. Graduate students are …

Collaborative Research: Developing Advanced Magnesium Electrolytes Toward Low Cost, High Energy Density Mg Batteries, Tianbiao Liu

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Planttracker: An R Package To Translate Maps Of Plant Occurrence Into Demographic Data, Alice E. Stears, Peter B. Adler, Shannon E. Albeke, David H. Atkins, Jared Studyvin, Daniel C. Laughlin

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Long-term demographic data are rare yet invaluable for conservation, management, and basic research on the underlying mechanisms of population and community dynamics. Historical and contemporary mapped datasets of plant location and basal area present a relatively untapped source of demographic records that, in some cases, span over 20 years of sequential data collection. However, these maps do not uniquely mark individual plants, making the process of collecting growth, survival, and recruitment data difficult.
2. Recent efforts to translate historical maps of plant occurrence into shapefiles make it possible to use computer algorithms to track individuals through time and determine individual growth …

Evaluation Of Parameter-Scaling For Efficient Deep Learning On Small Satellites, Calvin B. Gealy, Alan D. George

Small Satellite Conference

Parameter-scaling techniques change the number of parameters in a machine-learning model in an effort to make the network more amenable to different device types or accuracy requirements. This research compares the performance of two such techniques. NeuralScale is a neural architecture search method which claims to generate deep neural networks for devices that are resource-constrained. It shrinks a network to a target number of parameters by adjusting the width of layers independently to achieve a higher accuracy than previous methods. The novel NeuralScale algorithm is compared to the baseline uniform scaling of MobileNet-style models, where the width of each layer …

Multiconfiguration Loads Analysis For Missions With An Uncertain Rideshare Manifest, Erik C. Mellquist, Barbara Braun, Derek Ring, Tom Hiel, David Stephens

Small Satellite Conference

Rideshare or “multi-manifest” missions – where several smaller “rideshare” spacecraft are launched together, usually with a larger “forward” spacecraft – are becoming increasingly common. In many cases, the properties or configuration of the rideshare spacecraft are not well-defined during initial launch manifesting and may not be finalized until a few months before launch. In this paper, a multiconfiguration loads analysis (MLA) process is presented that can enable flexibility in the mission manifesting process by allowing for uncertainty in the final rideshare configuration, including late manifest changes or swaps, without requiring additional loads analyses to those specified in the Load Cycle …

Design And Optimization Of An Autonomous Constellation Of Small-Satellites For Leo And Beyond, Mohammed Irfan Rashed, Hyochoong Bang

Small Satellite Conference

The speedy data reception with useful applications such as disaster management remains to be need of the hour. This paper addresses the major concerns relating to deployment and control of the larger small satellite (mainly cubesats) constellations in LEO by determining their relative position and velocity errors under certain acceptable limits with collision avoidance techniques. The article will also discuss the importance of Inter-satellite link to significantly to strengthen the satellite tracking and their data sharing speeds. The issue of optimal dispatch of the satellites by optimizing the constellation size is detailed though observing and controlling the orbits using a …

Test And Evaluation Of Grissom-1 Cubesat Communication Subsystem, Michael J. Bittle, Andrew S. Keys

Small Satellite Conference

The Grissom-1 mission (GM1), slated to launch in September 2022, is the first in a series of 6-Unit CubeSat satellites built and operated by the Air Force Institute of Technology’s (AFIT’s) Center for Space Research and Assurance (CSRA). Mission success for GM1 depends on a comprehensive campaign of testing and assessment to confirm the components, design, and assembly of all systems and subsystems within the satellite. This paper specifically focuses on the testing and analysis of all communication links between the spacecraft, the ground system, and the Satellite Operations Center (SOC) being hosted at the Air Force Instituteof Technology at …

Low-Thrust Reconfiguration Strategy For Flexible Satellite Constellations, Federica Paganelli Azza, Pietro De Marchi, Matteo Stoisa, Paolo Gennaro Madonia

Small Satellite Conference

Flexible and responsive space systems are needed to satisfy changing mission requirements and react to unforeseen challenges. Reconfigurable constellations are a promising approach to overcome limitations of the current design philosophy, offering operators the ability to actively adapt the constellation configuration to future needs, promptly modifying their pattern to focus the available resources towards dynamic objectives. This work introduces a low-thrust reconfiguration strategy to optimize these constellations through a multiobjective Genetic Algorithm able to trade-off between observation performance over a desired target area and maneuvering cost to reach the new pattern. The presented approach is validated in a LEO scenario, …

Implementation And Characterization Of Commercial Off-The-Shelf Inertial Measurement Units For The Attitude Determination System Of The Move-Iii Cubesat, Natalia Piotrowski

Small Satellite Conference

This paper determines a suitable Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) of the third satellite generation of the Munich Orbital Verification Experiment (MOVE). The ADCS is required to provide an attitude determination with an accuracy of < 1°, which has to be achieved with both IMUs and sun sensors, at a low price, due to a low financial budget. In the context of this work, the three IMUs the BNO055, ICM20948 and LSM9DS1 are selected and analyzed. Additionally, the LIS3MDL magnetometer and the BMI088 gyroscope are used for further analysis and comparison. The error coefficients of each sensor measurement are initially calculated through the Allan variance, and these are then verified through Welch’s power spectral density estimate, simulations, and additional sensor measurements. Further temperature experiments are performed to characterize the behaviour of the sensor under changing temperatures. Evaluating the most accurate error coefficients found the BNO055 gyroscope to be the least affected by the white noise compared to the remaining gyroscopes. The LSM9DS1 appears to be the sensor least influenced by the random walk and white noise term among the magnetometers. The BNO055 magnetometer is the comparatively least affected by temperature changes, while the BMI088 appears the most stable amongst the gyroscopes. Finally, the BNO055 IMU is recommended to the ADCS of the MOVE-III CubeSat. It appeared to be the least influenced by different error sources and the ambient temperature.

Avionics System And Attitude Algorithms For A Deorbit Device Based On An Electrodynamic Tether, Sergio Garcia-Gonzalez, Lorenzo Tarabini Castellani, Sofia Orte, Asier Ortega, Gonzalo Sanchez-Arriaga, Enrico C. Lorenzini, Martin Tajmar, Katja Wätzig

Small Satellite Conference

The main goal of the Electrodynamic Tether technology for PAssive Consumable-less deorbit Kit (E.T.PACK) project is to develop a deorbit device based on an electrodynamic tether with TRL 4 by 2022. In September 2022, its continuation, i.e. the E.T.PACK-F project, will carry on with the activities of E.T.PACK to prepare a flight model with TRL 8 that will be tested in an in-orbit demonstration mission in 2025. This work (i) describes the attitude determination and control strategy of the mission, which is used as a means of explaining its different phases and the dynamics of each one of them, (ii) …

Responsive Operations For Key Services (Roks): A Modular, Low Swap Quantum Communications Payload, Craig D. Colquhoun, Hazel Jeffrey, Steve Greenland, Sonali Mohapatra, Colin Aitken, Mikulas Cebecauer, Charlotte Crawshaw, Kenny Jeffrey, Toby Jeffreys, Philippos Karagiannakis, Ahren Mctaggart, Caitlin Stark, Jack Wood, Siddarth K. Joshi, Jaya Sagar, Elliott Hastings, Peide Zhang, Milan Stefko, David Lowndes, John G. Rarity, Jasminder S. Sidhu, Thomas Brougham, Duncan Mcarthur, Robert G. Pousa, Daniel K. L. Oi, Matthew Warden, Eilidh Johnston, John Leck

Small Satellite Conference

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a theoretically proven future-proof secure encryption method that inherits its security from fundamental physical principles. With a proof-of-concept QKD payload having flown on the Micius satellite since 2016, efforts have intensified globally. Craft Prospect, working with a number of UK organisations, has been focused on miniaturising the technologies that enable QKD so that they may be used in smaller platforms including nanosatellites. The significant reduction of size, and therefore the cost of launching quantum communication technologies either on a dedicated platform or hosted as part of a larger optical communications will improve potential access to …

Nanosatellite Launch Forecasts - Track Record And Latest Prediction, Erik Kulu

Small Satellite Conference

After almost 300 CubeSats were sent to space in 2017, the following 3 years saw a continued decline. While 2021 set a new record of about 326 nanosatellites launched, most published forecasts and expectations from the last 10 years about the growth about CubeSats have not come to fruition. This paper attempts to answer the question why and make a new prediction based on scheduled missions and historic trends.

First part of the paper presents the latest nanosatellite and CubeSat launch statistics. Out of over 3400 entries in the database, 2068 nanosatellites or 1893 CubeSats have been launched as of …

Design And Analysis Of Cold Gas Thruster To De-Orbit The Pslv Debris, Roshan Sah, Raunak Srivastava, Kaushik Das

Small Satellite Conference

Today’s world of space’s primary concern is the uncontrolled growth of space debris and its probability of collision with spacecraft, particularly in the low earth orbit (LEO) regions. To prevent space debris growth, measures need to be taken so that there will be a debris depletion to conserve the LEO space environment and ease the risk of collision. This concern has developed the concept of Active Debris Removal (ADR). ADR method is an effective means for the removal of space debris using an active system. One of the ADR methods that have been continuously developed over a couple of decades …

Aurora: A Software Radio For Electromagnetic Vector Sensors In Space, Frank Lind, Mary Knapp, Phil Erickson, Russ Mcwhirter, Robert Schaefer, Tobias Gedenk, Frank Robey, Erik Thompson, Mark Silver, Alan Fenn, Janusz Majewski, Alexander Morris, Wayne Boland, Frank Schiavone, Rebecca Masterson, Nicholas Belsten, Alvar Saenz Otero

Small Satellite Conference

The AERO (Auroral Emission Radio Observer) and VISTA (Vector Interferometry Space Technology using AERO) missions will advance auroral radio science and radio interferometry technology. AERO is intended to qualify and validate electromagnetic vector sensor technology in space while also answering key scientific questions about the nature and sources of auroral radio emissions. These questions cannot be addressed from the ground due to shielding by the ionosphere. VISTA, together with AERO, will provide the first demonstration of interferometric imaging, beamforming, and nulling using electromagnetic vector sensors at low frequencies (100 kHz – 15 MHz) using Space based sensors.

A key component …

Global Navigation Satellite System Performance In Cislunar Space For Cubesat Form Factors, Warren Soh, Sunil Bisnath, Regina Lee, Peter Keum

Small Satellite Conference

An increased Cislunar traffic is expected by the end of this decade stemming from NASA’s Artermis program. Given the prioritization limitations of the Deep-Space Network (DSN) for ranging and tracking of increased deep- space assets, a more viable, and cost effective, independent navigation capability is needed. NASA’s 2015 Navigator Global Positioning System (GPS) deployed on the Magnetospheric Multi-Scale (MMS) spacecraft has validated the feasibility of acquiring weak GPS signals at distances up to 25 Earth Radii (~150,000km) or about 40% of the Cislunar trajectory. NASA plans to upgrade the flight proven MSS Navigator GPS for the future Lunar Gateway. Concurrently, …

Finch: A Blueprint For Accessible And Scientifically Valuable Remote Sensing Satellite Missions, Adyn Miles, David Maranto, Shiqi Xu, Rosalind Liang, Yong Da Li, Jason Rock, Amreen Imrit, Maggie Kou, Abeer Fatima, Allen Kasum, Amy Saranchuk, Ana-Maria Zamrii, Andy Gong, Angelina Hui, Anthony Dimaggio, Bejamin Nero, Bettina Oghinan, Bruno Almeida, Brytni Richards, Cameron Rodriguez, Dhruv Sirohi, Eman Shayeb, Emma Belhadfa, Eren Cimentepe, Ginny Guo, Harshit Sohaney, Hiba Al-Falahi, Ian Vyse, Iliya Shofman, Jasnoor Guliani, Jennifer Zhang, Kanver Bhandal, Kejsi Gjerazi, Ketan Vasudeva, Khalil Damouni, Kimberley Orna, Konstantinos Papaspyridis, Kyoka Collina Stone, Maggie Fen Wang, Mary Cheng, Maxime Michet, Mingde Yin, Mirai Shinjo, Nicholas Glenn, Novera Ahmed, Omar Farag, Prachi K. Sukhnani, Punyaphat Sukcharoenchaikul, Rajvi Rana, Rediet Yohannes, Selena Liu, Shuhan Zheng, Stephanie Yi Fei Lu, Tianyi Zhang, Tobias Rozario, Wanda Janaeska, Yifan (Julia) Ye, Ziyu Chen

Small Satellite Conference

Satellite remote sensing missions have grown in popularity over the past fifteen years due to their ability to cover large swaths of land at regular time intervals, making them suitable for monitoring environmental trends such as greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural practices. As environmental monitoring becomes central in global efforts to combat climate change, accessible platforms for contributing to this research are critical. Many remote sensing missions demand high performance of payloads, restricting research and development to organizations with sufficient resources to address these challenges. Atmospheric remote sensing missions, for example, require extremely high spatial and spectral resolutions to generate …

Wire Driven Mechanisms For Deployable Components For Optical Payloads, Mark Honeth, Akash Yalagach, Guglielmo Aglietti

Small Satellite Conference

Large empty volumes in optical payloads like telescopes and baffles take up significant, potentially useful space to package within a launcher volume, and can limit the minimum size of a spacecraft, having major implications on launch options and costs. Volume can be saved by using telescopic structures which can be deployed in-orbit. In previous work a light-weight wire-driven telescope was developed, which employed a constant torque spring motor with a damper to achieve a controlled deployment. This work focusses on the application of a similar deployment scheme to an optical baffle and the further development of the driving, tension-balancing and …

Methodology For Correlating Historical Degradation Data To Radiation-Induced Degradation System Effects In Small Satellites, Richard H. Nederlander, Arthur F. Witulski, Robert A. Reed, Enxia Zhang, Ronald D. Schrimpf, Brian D. Sierawski, Gabor Karsai, Nag Mahadevan, Keivan G. Stassun, Kaitlyn L. Ryder, Rebekah A. Austin, Michael J. Campola, Ray L. Ladbury

Small Satellite Conference

When constructing a system-level fault tree to demonstrate device-to-system level radiation degradation, reliability engineers need relevant, device-level failure probabilities to incorporate into reliability models. Deriving probabilities from testing can be expensive and time-consuming, especially if the system is complex. This methodology offers an alternative means of deriving device-level failure probabilities. It uses Bayesian analysis to establish links between historical radiation datasets and failure probabilities. A demonstration system for this methodology is provided, which is a TID response of a linear voltage regulator at 100 krad(S_iO₂). Data fed into the Bayesian model is derived from literature on …

Cubesat Radiation Hardness Assurance Beyond Total Dose: Evaluating Single Event Effects, Braden Oh, Celvi Lisy, Gia-Uyen Tran, Whitney Lohmeyer, Michael Campola, Scott Palo

Small Satellite Conference

Radiation poses known and serious risks to smallsat survivability and mission duration, with effects falling into two categories: long-term total ionizing dose (TID) and instantaneous single event effects (SEE). Although literature exists on the topic of addressing TID in smallsats, few resources exist for addressing SEEs. Many varieties of SEEs exist, such as bit upsets and latch ups, which can occur in any electronic component containing active semiconductors (such as transistors). SEE consequences range from benign to destructive, so mission reliability can be enhanced by implementing fault protection strategies based on predicted SEE rates. Unfortunately, SEE rates are most reliably …

Project Poke: Developing A Stem Community To Offset Learning Loss Amidst Covid Pandemic Through Aerospace Technologies Project-Based Learning In Hawaii's K-12 Classrooms, Kelly Ngo, Aksel Sloan, Christopher Amendola, Luke Clements, Amber Imai-Hong, Frances Zhu

Small Satellite Conference

Project POKE (Providing an Opportunity for the Keiki in Engineering) is a unique opportunity for middle and high school keiki (‘children’ in Hawaiian) in Hawaii to gain hands-on aerospace experience through interaction with a 1U CubeSat kit. The focus of the project is to build a STEM community based on collaboration and project-based learning to offset learning loss amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Project POKE program includes an educator course, CubeSat kit, collaborative digital space, open-ended design challenge, and symposium. Middle and high school teachers concurrently participate in the program’s educator course and meet with their students to teach the …

United Nations Activities For Enhancing Access To Space, Hazuki Mori, Jorge Del Rio Vera, Wenbin Zhang, Luc St-Pierre

Small Satellite Conference

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs manages and implements the Access to Space for All initiative which aims at broadening access to space in support of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through cooperation between space agencies, research institutions, academia, and industry with the United Nations. This paper focuses on the activities under the Satellite Development Track, describing the different opportunities available through the initiative in the field of small satellite development and technology, such as hands-on opportunities like “KiboCUBE” in cooperation with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, providing a 1U CubeSat deployment opportunity from the International Space …

Indigenous Americans Became Red: Racism As Justification For Exploitation Of Native Americans, Robert V. Dodge

Journal of Indigenous Research

This article presents how an admixture of humans first arrived in the western world during the last Ice Age and spread throughout both continents, developing more complex cultures and agriculture, then civilizations. The arrival of Columbus began colonization by white European countries, justified by bringing the indigenous population Christianity and European civilization. Native people were dehumanized by white settlers out of greed for their land, which was said to have been used unproductively. A contention of early British colonists was that Indians were born white but their uncivilized life prevented them from remaining so, giving them a range of hues. …