Chelsea Garcia led a team that won $10,000 in funding from the NASA Proposal Writing and Evaluation Experience Academy.

Chelsea Garcia, a graduate student in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, led a team to win a NASA proposal writing competition this summer.

The NASA Proposal Writing and Evaluation Experience Academy (NPWEE), led by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Chief Technologist and their office, helps participants learn how to write a selectable proposal. It teaches participants the proposal process and how to identify NASA's needs to succeed.

Each of the 37 teams brainstormed ideas and chose four to be reviewed by the chief technologist's team at NASA Marshall, led by Purdue AAE alumnus John Dankanich (BSAAE '01 MSAAE '03, OAE '22). Garcia’s idea, "Constructive Use of Regolith for In-Situ Engineering in Space," was selected from the ones her team submitted, making her the principal investigator (PI).

“As PI, I led our team in researching and planning the project's execution," Garcia says. "This involved budgeting, contacting subject matter experts, identifying facilities for testing and research, and determining the necessary resources. My team and I worked on researching the current state-of-the-art technologies, scientific processes, the effects of microgravity, and relevant materials to demonstrate how our idea could address NASA's challenges.”

With her leadership, the team put together a 7-page proposal for final review. Winning the competition earned the team $10,000 in seed funding to further develop the idea.

Garcia began her master’s degree studies at Purdue this fall in Prof. Byron Pipes’ research group. She completed her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Spring 2024.