Elizabeth Mastro is taking a path seldom traveled in engineering circles by students from other fields of study. She’s a junior Psychology major engaging in a nationwide competition geared for students preparing to enter what remains a very male-dominated field.
And she’s doing it from long distance, too.
Though she attends Fredonia, Mastro is part of a West Virginia University team that will participate in the 2015 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage forum, an engineering design competition that challenges mostly engineering students to address conditions astronauts will face in outer space.
Mastro attended West Virginia University for two years before transferring to Fredonia last fall for the start of her junior year. It was during her sophomore year that a group of engineering friends convinced Mastro to work with them on their RASC-AL project, citing academic diversity and different perspectives that she would bring to the material. Her contributions were in life support systems, such as water, food, exercise routines and recycling of renewable material from different forms of waste.
It was a successful year for the WVU team, which was chosen to compete in the RASC-AL forum held in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
A Long Island native and graduate of Valley Stream South High School, Mastro decided to transfer to Fredonia, citing the difference in price between in-state and out-of-state tuition and a more intimate academic setting that Fredonia offers, compared to WVU that has about 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students. But the former Mountaineer still desired to be part of the WVU team that would be gearing up for a bid to the 2015 RASC-AL finals.
That dream was realized through a partnership created last fall between the two universities for the 2015 RASC-AL competition. Mastro was part of the team again.
“Elizabeth wanted to continue working with the WVU team this year, so we decided to add (Fredonia) as a second university,” said Alfred Lynam, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the team’s adviser. She will be working on the human factors part of the project while her colleagues, mostly engineering students, will be working on all the more technical parts of the project.
The WVU/Fredonia group -- one of 16 representing a wide range of universities that include Georgia Institute of Technology, Drexel University, University of California at Davis and Penn State – will participate in the competition to be held June 14 to 17 in Cocoa Beach. Teams are developing mission architectures to implement innovative solutions in response to one of four themes. This is the fourth consecutive year that WVU has advanced to the finals.
Mastro’s team and four other student groups have been assigned to Earth Independent Lunar Pioneering Architecture. Work on their project, “Habitat on Moon Environment – H.O.M.E. Base: An Earth-Independent Lunar Architecture Mission,” began last fall.
The WVU/Fredonia team is designing a self-sufficient manned research station for the moon. Their proposal includes plans for early robotic reconnaissance and construction missions, as well as human habitation and research missions. Research will be outlined in a technical paper and poster presented to a panel of NASA and industry experts. Students also give a PowerPoint presentation and answer questions from judges.
Now a RASC-AL veteran, Mastro is taking her research to a higher level. “I'm helping cover human factors which consist of topics ranging from psychological health, life support systems (food, water, oxygen and recycling of different forms of waste materials), exercise routines suitable in microgravity and basic health necessities for an extended lunar stay - in this case 20 years in a sustainable environment,” she explained.
Though nearly 250 miles separate Fredonia and Morgantown, W.Va., Mastro says communication with fellow teammates isn’t a problem, thanks to social media and email.
The RASC-AL, sponsored by NASA and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace, provides university-level engineering students with the opportunity to design human scale architecture concepts based on NASA engineering challenges and also gives NASA access to new research and design projects developed by students. Presentations typically run about 30 minutes and are followed by a question-and-answer period.
Two teams will be chosen at the conclusion of the forum to present their design projects to industry experts at a major aerospace conference.
The RASC-AL competition is open to undergraduate and undergraduate students studying in fields with applications to human space exploration, such as aerospace, bio-medical, electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as life, physical and computer sciences. Interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.
Student benefits outside of the formal competition include an exclusive tour of NASA facilities not open to the public and presentations by guest speakers. There is also a blacklight volleyball tournament between teams from each school and a team consisting of judges. Not to be overlooked, too, is the beach-front hotel that hosts the week-long event.
Mastro encourages Fredonia students to become involved in something that they’re passionate about, even if it seems like a stretch.
“Although I was very timid at first working with a large group of engineering students, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of positive experiences I had through my involvement with this project last year and I'm very excited to see what it has in store for me this year,” said Mastro, daughter of Kimberly and Richard Mastro.
