Jadia Ewing

My story

Something about learning and studying the unknown has always piqued my interest, specifically in the fields of cosmology, stellar astrophysics, and a bit of particle physics. I’ve always been interested in learning more about dark matter/dark energy, black holes, and pulsars. The ultimate goal I have is to work at NASA not only as an astrophysicist but also as a software engineer/programmer.  

I recently completed an internship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where I worked on star formation history/galaxy simulations to be used for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026. I extracted and created the simulations of star formation history spectra from some stellar libraries, where I used Linux coding and Python coding to create galaxy scenes that could then be used as an input to create the GRISM, which is basically the light dispersed output from the Roman telescope.

I’m very honored and grateful that I was chosen to receive this scholarship. It will help fund my education, as well as help fund my journey toward the career I want to achieve. I want to thank the TEAM-UP Scholarship committee for helping me pursue my passion for astronomy and astrophysics.