NASA summer program helped Cree Taylor soar – and land on her academic focus

By Madeline Reinsel

Cree Taylor likes to learn, and she likes to stay busy. Whether she's climbing atmospheric monitoring towers, checking on prothonotary warbler bird boxes or identifying fish in Italy, the environmental studies major is always ready to pitch in.

"I think I'm a big dabbler," said Taylor, a rising senior in the School of Life Sciences and Sustainability in Virginia Commonwealth University's College of Humanities and Sciences. "I really like to join in on other people's projects and be a helper."

That sensibility has helped Taylor narrow her own interests. After a previous summer volunteering for life sciences professor and VCU Rice Rivers Center executive director Chris Gough, Ph.D., on his work measuring greenhouse gas fluxes, he encouraged her to aim higher - much higher.

This summer, Taylor participated in NASA's Student Airborne Research Program, during which she flew in research planes on data-collecting missions, learned to code and met NASA earth scientists. SARP, which VCU hosted for the last two years, teaches college students essential research skills and introduces them to the daily work of environmental scientists.

Taylor, who was in the program's West Coast cohort, spent her summer in both Houston and San Diego. In Houston, she learned the coding language Python, assisted scientists on both land-based and airborne remote sensing projects, and toured NASA's famed Johnson Space Center. She also met an astronaut.

"It felt just like space camp," she said.

In San Diego, Taylor worked on her individual research project, testing how GPS satellites can help map flooding. Taylor, who spent part of her childhood in Norfolk, said this project felt more personal than usual: The city's frequent flooding often caused her family's basement to fill with water, and their neighborhood would be so inundated that she could skimboard down the street.

The summer experience in SARP focused her research interests, and Taylor now hopes to continue flooding-related research - both at VCU and beyond.

"This feels different, because I feel my 'why' is stronger," she said.

The flooding Taylor experienced in Norfolk was serious, but she hopes her research could help regions with more violent natural disasters: "I think I realized how lucky I was that [flooding] has always just been an inconvenience to me."

Taylor credits VCU's environmental studies program with exposing her to so many varied research experiences.

"It's so tight-knit and there are so many opportunities, and everybody wants to help," she said. "There are so many different paths you can take and still end up in a cool spot. You just have to be eager and willing to take on opportunities as they come."

While Taylor has enjoyed her field research experiences, her summer in SARP helped her discover that she loves coding as well.

"It's really fun," she said. "I love problem-solving, so it's kind of like a big puzzle, or like an escape room."

The NASA program also encouraged Taylor to pursue her goal of attending graduate school and studying environmental science.

"SARP kind of got a ball rolling in my head about where I want to go," she said. But she still hopes to stick to her roots: "I want to stay true to the dabbling."