CISTO Summer 2025 Interns Contribute to
NASA Information Technology Tools and Capabilities
Summer 2025 interns at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (CISTO) include: top (left to right) — Melody Bechler, Savannah “Vana” Brookins, Landon Davidson, Bochu Ding, and Marissa Halim; and bottom (left to right) — George Liu, Makayla Mayhew, Michael Nnamoko, Avi Serebrenik, and Ivan Zhang.
Each year, the Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (CISTO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center hosts a group of interns from multiple disciplines. This summer, 10 interns from across the continental United States and Hawaiʻi have been learning and contributing to NASA information technology tools and capabilities.
The Summer 2025 interns have been working in CISTO’s Data Science Group, High-Performance Computing Group at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), and Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) in support of the multi-agency Earth Information Center (EIC). With expert guidance from their mentors, interns have been engaged in projects as wide-ranging as applying artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) techniques to enhancing Large Language Models and building decision-making tools, developing multi-computer-architecture benchmarks and data analysis and processing tools, and adding new content and an immersive virtual reality experience to EIC installations.
Hear more from 10 CISTO interns about their backgrounds and projects by clicking on the buttons below.
Title
AI/ML Intern in the CISTO Data Science Group at NASA Goddard and Scientific Computing at NASA Headquarters
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Evaluating the performance of machine translation and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) models and developing meteorological enhancements for Large Language Models.
Mentors
Dan Duffy and Tsengdar Lee
Education
Melody Bechler is a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.
Title
NASA Intern at the Earth Information Center (EIC)
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Expanding the EIC’s network through community engagement, targeted outreach, purpose-driven programming, and building out new content for the EIC website.
Mentors
Nicole Ramberg-Phil and Eleanor Stokes
Education
Vana Brookins is a recent graduate of George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she earned her Master of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences and Policy.
Title
High-Performance Computing Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Developing benchmarks that can be easily adapted and run across a variety of systems and architectures.
Mentors
Laura Carriere and Bruce Pfaff
Education
Landon Davidson is a rising sophomore at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.
Title
AI/ML Intern at CISTO
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Building a full-stack, multi-agent system (MAS) that supports program managers in retrieving mission-critical details, summarizing cross-cutting trends, and making agile and informed decisions.
Mentor
Dan Duffy and Tsengdar Lee
Education
Bochu Ding is a graduate student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He received his bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.
Title
NASA intern for the Earth Information Center (EIC) at the Scientific Visualization Studio
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Assisting in the development of an exhibit at Kennedy Space Center called “The Seas of Tomorrow” and co-developing an immersive virtual reality experience for the EIC.
Mentor
Brenda Lopez Silva and Michael Chyatte
Education
Marissa Halim is a second year master’s student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Title
NASA intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Assisting in the development of a Python package that will access the DONKI database to easily produce analytical tools on the collected information.
Mentors
Jules Kouatchou
Education
George Liu is a rising junior at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Title
Engagement intern for the Earth Information Center (EIC)
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Gathering content for an EIC website, increasing engagement for the NASA Headquarters EIC.
Mentor
Nicole Ramberg-Pihl and Eleanor Stokes
Education
Makayla Mayhew is a rising junior at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
Title
NASA Intern at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Enhancing a Python-based application that focuses on tracking the International Space Station’s path, increasing data processing speeds, and creating a dashboard to make everything more user friendly.
Mentors
Jules Kouatchou
Education
Michael Nnamoko is a rising junior at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Title
Interaction Development and Design Intern for the Earth Information Center (EIC) in the Scientific Visualization Studio
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Developing gesture recognition controls for NASA Hyperwalls and a virtual reality EIC experience.
Mentors
Brenda Lopez Silva and Michael Chyatte
Education
Avi Serebrenik is a master’s student in Computer Graphics and Game Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Title
National Space Club and Foundation (NSCF) Intern in the CISTO High-Performance Computing Group
Terms with CISTO
Summer 2025
Internship Overview
Developing ML pipelines for climate data compression and creating supporting documentation.
Mentors
Johana Chazaro-Haraksin and Dan Duffy
Education
Ivan Zhang is a rising freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
As the fall semester begins for many, we wish all our interns the best of success in the future!
Jarrett Cohen, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
August 27, 2025
