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<!doctype html>
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<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
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<meta property="og:title" content="Erick White - Student, Researcher, Engineer">
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<div class="intro">
<h1 class="page-title">Work and Experience</h1>
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<div class="work-and-experience-grid">
<article class="container light" id="csml-2025">
<h3 class="stylized">Undergraduate Research Assistant - Celestial and Spaceflight Mechanics Laboratory
(June 2025 - Present)</h3>
<p>
For the summer following my third year of undergraduate studies, I decided to turn down an offer
from the
<a class="link" href="https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/solarsystem/magnetospheres/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA Planetary Magnetospheres Lab</a> and instead further pursue my
interests in mathematical and computational modeling with the
<a class="link" href="https://ccar.colorado.edu/scheeres/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Celestial and Spaceflight Mechanics Laboratory</a> under the mentorship
of
<a class="link" href="https://www.colorado.edu/aerospace/daniel-scheeres" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Dr. Daniel Scheeres</a>.
In this position, I am developing methods for reliably integrating <em>N</em>-body mechanics (used
here to model mutual gravitational attraction) with granular mechanics (used here to model contact
dynamics) to better understand the dynamics of systems of asteroids.
Specifically, I am interested in researching angular momentum and energy transfer when an asteroid
is ejected from a cluster, along with the frequency of such an event.
This work is heavily focused on numerical computation, with knowledge of both numerical analysis
(<em>e.g.</em>, understanding integration schemes and their convergence properties, working with
parallelization, <em>etc.</em>) and astrophysical processes.
</p>
</article>
<article class="container dark" id="lair-2024">
<h3 class="stylized">Undergraduate Research Assistant - Lightning, Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and Radiation
Belt Research Group (August 2024 - May 2025)</h3>
<p>
As part of the <a class="link"
href="https://www.colorado.edu/engineering/discovery-learning-apprenticeship-dla-program"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CU Boulder Discovery Learning
Apprenticeship (DLA) Program</a>, I worked under
<a class="link" href="https://www.colorado.edu/aerospace/robert-marshall" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Dr. Robert Marshall</a> and Ph.D. student Paraksh Vankawala at the
<a class="link" href="https://culair.weebly.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LAIR
Lab</a> on detecting and analyzing plasma waves (specifically, EMIC waves) in the Earth's
magnetosphere using Van Allen Probe data.
During this work, I was exposed to a number of topics with which I had no prior experience,
including space and plasma physics, machine learning, and scientific data analysis.
I was responsible for finding a consistent and reliable method to visualize the waves, annotating
and training a model to detect them, and performing analysis on the waves that I was able to find.
</p>
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<p>
As my first research position in academia, I gained valuable experience in learning how a
research lab works, including working with Ph.D. students, attending and presenting at lab
meetings, and communicating with a PI.
At the end of the school year, I was chosen (as part of the DLA program) to present my work at a
poster session representing undergraduate research. You can download that poster <a class="link"
href="assets/docs/work-and-experience/dla-symposium-poster.pdf"
target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>,
or a presentation I gave to a group of other DLA students <a class="link"
href="assets/docs/work-and-experience/dla-presentation.pdf"
target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>!
</p>
</div>
</article>
<article class="container dark" id="omitron-cara-2024">
<h3 class="stylized">Omitron Internship - NASA CARA (May 2024 - Present)</h3>
<p>
I returned to <a class="link" href="https://www.omitron.com/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Omitron</a> for a second summer, this time in a research
position on the <a class="link" href="https://www.nasa.gov/conjunction-assessment" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">CARA</a> (Conjunction Assessment and Risk Analysis)
team.
Since I was a returning intern, I had the opportunity to felve much more deeply into more complex
topics than I was able to during my previous summer; during my work, I was exposed to advanced
concepts in conjunction assessment, such as covariance estimation and propagation, covariance
realism, multivariate statistical analysis, and multidimensional data visualization.
The majority of my work was on a research project building on the work I did at the end of my
previous internship, this time focusing on comparing three methods for visualizing near-Earth
satellite conjunctions and their utility for different conjunction geometries; as a part of this
research, I both developed a visualization program and wrote a 20-page paper on my work and
findings.
</p>
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<p>
In addition to my main research project, I also had the opportunity to work on several other
projects, including a statistical corner plot generator for MATLAB, a conjunction update
visualizer, and an experimental numerical propagator for simulating deep-space conjunctions
using simplified equations of motion.
I also had the opportunity to present by work to both the CARA Analysis Team and a broader group
of engineers, researchers, and interns at the end of the summer.
The paper I wrote is currently pending release at the 2025 Astrodynamics Specialist Conference
and I am supporting final work on its preparation.
</p>
</div>
</article>
<article class="container light" id="omitron-cara-2023">
<h3 class="stylized">Omitron Internship - NASA CARA (June 2023 - August 2023)</h3>
<p>
I was an analysis intern for <a class="link" href="https://www.omitron.com/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Omitron</a>, a NASA contractor, on the <a
class="link" href="https://www.nasa.gov/conjunction-assessment" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">CARA</a> (Conjunction Assessment and Risk Analysis) program.
For the first portion of my internship, I primarily worked on updating and developing unit tests for
various routines in the <a class="link" href="https://github.com/nasa/CARA_Analysis_Tools"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CARA SDK</a>, as well as
improving the safety and robustness of some of these routines.
These included both simple library functions and more complicated, in-depth research-driven code,
such as the code used to calculate probability of collision (Pc) using various semi-analytical and
numerical methods.
During the final three weeks (approximately) of my internship, I was put to the task of developing
my own tool from scratch.
</p>
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<p>
The tool was for conjunction visualization; I created both still frames and animations showing
satellite conjunction events, displaying features such as the probability density function
clouds (for both absolute and relative position views), the collision sphere, the conjunction
plane, and the predicted covariance ellipse.
I later adapted these visualization tools to be highly customizable and modular; each aspect of
the animation (pausing, zooming, panning, labeling/displaying features, etc.) is very easy to
manipulate.
CARA plans to use the tools I have developed to illustrate conjunction events to mission teams
who require conjunction analysis, as well as to individuals who are unfamiliar with conjunction
analysis as a tutorial.
As part of this internship, I have gained extensive exposure to various facets of astrodynamics,
both in practical and theoretical aspects of the field itself (<em>i.e.</em>, element
set/reference frame/time system conversions, two line element sets, orbit
shapes/parameters/maneuvers, precession/nutation, <em>etc.</em>) and more generally applicable
topics (<em>i.e.</em>, covariance/error, MATLAB unit testing, engineering practices,
<em>etc.</em>).
</p>
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</article>
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