Sarah
Hello. Welcome to a new episode on our STEMterview series. Today we’re talking to Shelita Hall from Norfolk State University. And she reached out to us because she has a very interesting story to tell because she’s working at NASA. She’s doing a PhD there. And I’m so glad you had the time to reach out to us and you’re interested in talking to us today.

Shelita
Super excited.

Sarah
Thank you. So can we just start and you tell us what your research is about and what your PhD project is on?

Shelita
We know that astronauts are bound for deep space missions. And so their spacesuits have all these different sensors that are vapors and the atmosphere monitoring their vital signs and monitoring pressure of different gases and stuff. And so my project is going to be to fabricate a sensor that’s able to detect various vapors, especially biohazards just to ensure that astronauts are safe. The state of the art for the current spacesuits only test for CO2 and oxygen. So I’m hoping that my sensor will be able to contribute to creating sensors that sense various other gases.

Sarah
What kind of gases can we find in outer space besides CO2?

Shelita
There’s oxygen. We wanna be able to detect methane. There are certain gases that are emitted for certain health issues from ketones. There’s a lot of different gases. I can’t explain but I have on the top of my head. The current sensors for spacesuits..they’re the range of what the sensors are able to do is just not enough. We want it to be small and wireless. And so, that is the course in the duration of my PhD research. And so, I will be using carbon nanotubes to re-synthesizing those and then using them to make my thin film device. And so this device then will be used to detect various vapors.

Sarah
How do they detect them? What’s the mechanism behind that?

Shelita
In different gases, the carbon nanotubes are able to electrically conduct and so when there are other types of gases that are actually exposed to the carbon nanotube, they actually expand, which causes resistivity, and so you’re able to measure the change in resistivity, or the electric current.

Sarah
What is resistivity? Sorry to interrupt.

Shelita
Resistivity is a resistance. Current is flowing through carbon nanotubes, and then on exposure, that current is just not able to flow. That’s resistance. And so you’re able to electrically measure that after the exposure to vapors. And then we want to be able to put these thin films in radiation environments to test the capabilities of long term monitoring in real time in these extreme environments because our environment here on Earth is totally different from Mars in orbit. In Earth orbit, we are protected from radiation here on Earth by our Magnetosphere. But unfortunately, when you are launched into space, you are no longer protected by the atmosphere. And so you’re exposed to all types of radiation from the sun, from exploding stars or galactic cosmic radiation. So we wanna be able to test the integrity of our sensor to make sure that we still get the same operating results even after exposure, and just to be able to study that so that we can know any modifications that will have to be made during the course of long term deep space flight.

Sarah
That is so interesting because I always thought that there’s nothing out there in space like it’s empty, there’s a void, there’s this vacuum, and now you’re telling me that all these gases and toxins…I’m just blown away right now. I can’t believe it.

So how do you make sure that your sensor is basically detecting all of the molecules? Because you don’t know what exists out there if you don’t measure, right? So you never really know whether you’re measuring everything that’s out there, right?

Shelita
Please ask your question one more time, I’m unsure.

Sarah
Okay. What if there’s something out there, some toxin, some molecule, some weird compound that we don’t know how to measure yet. It’s always in science that you don’t know what’s there if you don’t measure it or if you’re unable to measure it, no?

Shelita
Well, I don’t know if that would be a project for someone else’s PhD. As for my PhD, I’m only planning on having a certain or like cohort of gases that I plan on using just for my PhD. And so, I will be testing just the sensors for gases. Hopefully, in the future, other gases can be used for sensor devices. There’s a large group of gases that can be detected from these sensors. For my PhD, I’m only testing a small amount of various gases. But that will definitely be a future work for someone else.

Sarah
You gotta start somewhere, that’s nice. So how many of these sensors are integrated in an astronaut’s suit? Is there like one sensor here or is the suit covered in sensors?

Shelita
I’m not a spacesuit expert, but I know that there are various types of detectors. You have temperature detectors, making sure the astronaut doesn’t get too hot, too cold. You have pressurized sensors, making sure the pressure of various gases is suitable for the spacesuit. There’s so many types of different sensors. I’m not like a spacesuit guru. I just know this particular type of sensor for spacesuits. But I know that spaces are very complex. They’re actually working on a brand new and improved spacesuit for the moon mission and the Mars mission, which is supposed to take place in 2030.

Sarah
Nice. Can’t wait. Awesome. So how did you end up at NASA? Why did you choose NASA? Have you always been interested in space, astronomy, or what’s worked for you?

Shelita
I have always wanted to work at NASA, but I just never thought that it could actually happen in your dream, in your journey. But you never think that it would actually become a reality. And so when I first came to college, my goal was to go to medical school and become a doctor. That goal just quickly became unattainable, because I knew how expensive it was, how long it was. And so I was kind of in this place where I was stuck during my senior year. I got my Master’s in chemistry. During my senior year, I was like, “what do I do?”. And so my school [inaudible]. I was looking at the different programs they had there. And so they had a PhD program and I was eligible to skip masters and go straight to PhD. And so I heard that they were integrating this new program, the Space Medicine program. And I was like, “space medicine seems so cool”. And just the whole space project, space initiative had been going on at Norfolk State, which I never knew about until my senior year. And so one of my professors, he rolled up in his car when I was walking to school. He was like, “You want to join our PhD program? You’re gonna get your patch at NASA and work at NASA”. And I’m just like, “what?”. He was telling me this, and I’m just like, “are you sure you’re talking to me?”. I just [inaudible] that conversation like, “can I actually do this?”. And so I looked online, and I looked for different internship opportunities. And I applied to a bunch of them. I just wanted to try and see what happened to me. I didn’t think anything’s gonna happen. I was at a conference, and I got a call, and they’re like, “you should come work at NASA for an internship.” And I’m just like, “I heard the voicemail.” And I’m just replaying it over and over again, just like, “there’s no possible way.”

Sarah
This is spam.

Shelita
It has to be spam. And I was just playing it over and over again. I really couldn’t believe it. And I called and I was just so happy. And so, I have been an intern since 2020. Right before COVID, I was actually working on site at NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia. Then COVID happened. So I’ve been virtual ever since. And I’ve been in a lot of different departments. I’ve worked in radiation, I‘ve worked in chief technology, I’ve worked in science management, I’ve worked at NASA Langley at Hampton, I’ve worked at NASA Glenn, which is in Ohio. And now I’m currently a civil servant, or a government employee actually hired by NASA, but it’s called a Pathways internship. So, you are actually a government employee by NASA. You work two times a semester. And then like, after you graduate you do a conversion process that actually starts converting you to a full time employment. And so right now, we work two times two semesters per year, and I’m based out of Johnson Space Center in Texas. I work remotely. And I was doing some science management and stuff like that, like administration, just to get some experience outside of research and lab work. I kind of wanted to have an overall experience for my PhD journey. And so now, my next job will be in science journalism and media, which is why I reached out because I’m really, really interested in being on NASA TV. That’s my end goal.

Sarah
You want to find your own NASA TV or you want to be on NASA TV, sorry?

Shelita
NASA TV’s already a thing. I want to be in broadcasting and science writing. I really love writing. And I love science journalism. There’s a big switch. But my next internship will kind of help me to get into that media communications world. And so it’s going to be different, but I’m excited.

Sarah
It’s exciting. I can tell you from my own experience. It’s a great life, the best. Okay, so you’re doing a PhD project right now. But this means you’re doing a lot of different courses as well, that’s how it works? Because you said you’re doing science journalism, science management, and space medicine, all of that. That’s part of your PhD program?

Shelita
Right. So my PhD program is based out of just a space initiative. So I wasn’t in the space medicine program for my PhD at first. But then, I just switched over to space materials and different space applications, which is what the carbon nanotubes devices and sensors are for. But then I do have courses and stuff for my PhD. The coursework for my PhD was only four semesters. So I finished that and now I’m entering just my general research. I’m not taking any more classes right now. So I’m just kind of working on my proposal, and then I’ll defend my research sometime in 2023, 2024. Yeah, and so my internships are science management. My internships are outside of school. And so I was doing all my internships remotely while taking classes. And it was a lot. I was working full time. But thankfully, I didn’t have to go on site, that would have been even harder. And you can hear in the background, I was pregnant while taking classes and working full time, and I have a five month old. And so, it’s not easy being a mom in STEM. Thankfully, my fiance is here to help.and he’s just so helpful with everything. If it wasn’t for him and just my family helping, I don’t know how to do it.

Sarah
It sounds like a lot of trouble. Yeah, well done. You’re amazing. There’s one question that just burns in my mind. How does research look for you? Like, what do you do as an experiment in the lab? How does that work? Like you’re trying to have a little sensor? Because it can’t be. Or do you work in a vacuum chamber or something? How does it work?

Shelita
My PhD, my research interests have jumped around. And so I’ve been doing various things. I’ve been in the cleanroom. So a cleanroom is just a laboratory that is super clean. It has filters in the ceiling that filter out any particles that don’t need to be there. You have to put on this elaborate suit, which looks like a spacesuit. And you have to go in there and you have to make sure you have your gloves. So you do work in there to make sure that the devices that you make have as little room for error as possible. And so it’s best to make these devices in the cleanroom. And so that’s where I’ll be making my devices. And I was also doing some simulation work when I was pregnant because I was not really able to go into the lab because of pregnancy. So I was doing some computational work from my computer. It was a software where you’re able to put different materials into the software, and you’re able to irradiate, use them like protons or neutrons, and you’re able to flash these radiation to material, but geometry that you create and the software, you’re able to get results as far as dose, as far as flux and how it affects the material inside the software. And so I was doing that. But I realized just long term from my PhD program, I do not want to do that because I don’t have experience with coding and software. That is not my forte. So I’m okay now and I’m able to go back in the lab. I’ll be back in the cleanroom. So I’ll be making my devices in the cleanroom with this elaborate suit on and that’s where I’ll make my devices. But first, I have to actually synthesize the carbon nanotubes that will be used for the device. That’s separate. They don’t have to be in a cleanroom for that. But there’s a lot of different procedures you go through, like sonication, and just different things that actually come up with the material that you want, and then apply it. So you have out of instrumentation that you use to characterize your device, to make sure that you look at your device, and in the nanoscale environment, like using the SEM, scanning electron microscope, you’re able to actually see the carbon nanotubes and how they look, or how they look before you expose them to gases and how they’re like separated, and then how they come together. When they’re exposed to gas to create that resistance, you’re able to measure that.

Sarah
Okay, and was it you who chose the research topic? Or was it assigned to you? And if you chose it, why did you choose it?

Shelita
I was like, “I can’t do software work”. So I was like, “I think I want to go back to chemistry and chemical engineering, that type of material science because my bachelor’s in chemistry. So I have more interest, and more experience in chemistry. But this can be applied to material science, which is what my PhD is based out of. And so I knew that I wanted to work with synthesizing chemicals, which is why I chose carbon nanotubes and synthesize. And so I’ll be synthesizing these and I knew I work at NASA so I want to be able to take what I synthesized and apply it to space applications. My advisor helped me to come up with a project. Well, he already created the device a long time ago. He created a device with the carbon nanotubes, but what he didn’t do, he didn’t expose his device to a radiation environment. And so this is kind of a new note, because for a PhD, you have to do something new. And so that’s the route that I will go for my PhD. I will be actually taking this device, synthesizing it, creating it, and then exposing it into different environments to see the integrity and how it continues to operate in these extreme environments.

Sarah
That sounds really cool. So you keep talking or the phrase space radiation keeps popping up? What exactly is that? And how does it affect us humans? And why is it an issue for our health?

Shelita
We here on Earth are protected. We have what’s called a magnetosphere. It’s like a layer outside of Earth, a little bit above Earth’s surface. I’m not sure the exact height, but it’s a layer over Earth that essentially protects us from solar particle rays, protects us from any radiation that goes into space. It actually absorbs it all. And when you are launched into space, you’re no longer protected by that magnetosphere. Now you are exposed to solar particle rays, which are photons that have escaped the sun’s surface and just fly and they’re able to penetrate the spacecraft, penetrate the spacesuit, penetrate human skin, they are able to affect different devices when you have radiation from exploding stars. And so this is called galactic cosmic radiation and this radiation is very high energy. So it’s also able to penetrate spacecraft, space tubes and human skin and affect devices as well. So for radiation inside, first of all, there’s a lot of brain defects that could happen from radiation exposure, heart defects. There’s first of all, a lot of things that astronauts go through with the health risk involved. And so therefore, there’s different sensors to constantly monitor vital signs. But yeah, radiation in space is completely different from what we experience here on Earth. I can’t give you the exact statistics. But what we experience as humans when we fly on an airplane, once a month, twice a month, astronauts get what we get in a year, in one day. To put it in perspective, how damaging radiation can be to the human and spacecraft. So it’s a really big deal. And one of the biggest reasons why it’s taken so long for us to go back to the moon.

Sarah
Okay, I was not aware of this. And there’s no way for us to wall that radiation off somehow? There’s no material yet that can?

Shelita
There’s plenty of research being done right now to be able to test different materials and their integrity in extreme environments. There’s actually a lab, there’s plenty of labs across the US that they actually have a beam and this beam has a radiation type, it can be a proton, could be neutron, and you’re able to take that beam and expose it to the material that you want to see how the material reacts. There’s a lab in Brookhaven, New York called NASA Radiation Laboratory. And so you’re able to take materials, even animals. A lot of people do rodent research there to expose their animals in this space-like environment, expose them to radiation and see what happens. So a lot of medical stuff is going on right now. There are materials that are promising as far as being able to absorb radiation or deflect it. And these materials will ultimately be used for spacecraft design and spacesuit design, especially for extravehicular activities to make sure that astronauts are safe.

Sarah
Amazing. That is so interesting, I was not aware of it at all, so cool. Awesome. Okay, let’s talk a bit more about your PhD journey so far, because you said you had some struggles as well, in between. What were most of them? And how did you overcome them?

Shelita
I’m still overcoming them. I think 80% of a PhD program is pure failure. And like the last six months is when success actually happens. So I think that’s one thing that I actually had to understand. To get a PhD, you have to be flexible, you have to be resilient. I think that those are two things that I actually learned the most, and I’m still learning. I’m not done yet.

Sarah
You will never be done with it. I can tell you after your PhD.

Shelita
I think being pregnant is one kind of factor that kind of made me slow down a little bit. And also just kind of figuring out where I want to be with my research. That’s also kind of hard to do because you have a thousand and a million topics in the world and you have to find one, until it’s just like, “that’s hard too” and so you try to do different things. I tried software work, but didn’t like it. I love the skills that I learned, but as far as [inaudible] didn’t like it. So I’m still early and just finished my coursework. So it’s not super bad. I’m excited for my project right now. And so, yeah, I’m just going with the flow. I am very certain on this new project. And I’m really excited about it. And I’m just ready to finish at this point.

Sarah
That’s a good point to be. That’s amazing. Okay, so if you were to give advice to other young people who want to start in STEM or in space topic, what would be the advice you give them?

Shelita
I would say that you would have to make sure that you overcome any impostor syndrome that you may have. Be confident in yourself, be confident in what you’ve learned, and just be open to learning more and be okay with failure. And that is one thing that I learned too because I feel like that when you have impostor syndrome, and then you fail, it kind of deepens impostor syndrome. That’s why failure is so important, and it’s essential to success. And I would just say, don’t be discouraged when obstacles come up. Just keep going. And keep telling yourself that what you’re doing is enough, and it’s okay, and you’re not a failure. And what you’re doing is totally awesome. And so that’s what I would say. That’s what I have learned myself. And I think that’s the most important thing that I have kept with me during this hard but very rewarding journey.

Sarah
Nice. I’m really glad to hear that. Amazing. So as you might know, at the end of most STEMterviews, we always have a couple of random questions that are also a bit more personal. Are you up for those? Okay, one question, what are you truly passionate about?

Shelita
What am I truly passionate about? I am truly passionate about my daughter. She is everything. She is a ball of little chunky joy. I’m passionate about her and her health and her success and just making her happy. And I’m passionate about my family. Just making sure that we’re happy and healthy and also love dance. I love to dance. I take dance class. I’ve been dancing since I was four. And so I’m also very passionate about dance and culture and experiencing various cultures in traveling. I’m sorry, I’m going on and on. But those things and so.

Sarah
Okay, nice. And what do you wish you really understood about anything?

Shelita
That is a hard question. I really wish I understood what astronauts go through during launch, during landing. What exactly do they feel? What happens? You have all this G-force.

Sarah
It goes up and down.

Shelita
How does it feel to be in orbit around the Earth? How does it feel to look down at the Earth and see that you’re not there? That is intriguing to me. I don’t think I’ll ever do it.

Sarah
Will you ever go to space?

Shelita
I don’t know. Right now, the answer is no. But things could change. I don’t know that. That’s nerve wracking to me. But that would just be the coolest thing to know. So I think that would be something that I would totally want to understand and be able to feel it myself.

Sarah
Amazing. Next question is: What is your favorite movie about space? There are so many.

Shelita
Interstellar. I don’t know I love that movie so much. I don’t know but it was an astronaut. I haven’t seen it for so long, but it was astronaut. He launched into space and he went to some planet. And the time had changed, his daughter was really, really sad about him going and he wasn’t able to go back or something. And his daughter had aged so much in a day or two. And on this other planet, she had aged like 30 years when he was on this other planet. And so when he came back, she was so much older. And she was angry. So it was just the time. It was intriguing about how time changes with different planets and how you could be one day on this planet and could be 30 years on this planet. That is so crazy to me, to see just to learn about the theory of time and space. It’s so crazy to me. Time, space, black holes, all of that is so interesting to me. Black holes are so cool to me like, “what is it?”. It’s just intriguing. It’s mind blowing. We’re so tiny compared to everything else in space. And so it’s just so much.

Sarah
Okay, next question: If you were to write a book, what would be the topic of the book?

Shelita
Well, I’m actually working on my own book about my life and my academic journey and about me and my journey to NASA being a minority woman in STEM and ending up, coming from a very poor neighborhood to having this dream of doing this and being an engineer and working with NASA. And then being able to make that dream a reality. I want to be able to tell my story, especially for those mothers who are in STEM or in graduate school and they feel so discouraged. But I want to be able to tell my story and tell how it is possible and is still doable, and just to be able to inspire the next person.

Sarah
I can’t wait to read that book. Nice. Okay, and the last question is, what is your favorite dish?

Shelita
I really love my dish that I make. I used to be a vegan. So I used to use a lot of Beyond Meat. And so I really love Beyond sausage. I used to make a Beyond sausage pasta. I call it supreme pasta, pasta supreme and just make my own name for it. It’s so good. So I put pasta, sausage and cheese and cayenne pepper. And I really love to cook, by the way. I cook all the time. So yeah, I think that is my favorite dish. And actually, I just ordered some Beyond Meat to make it again. It’s a really good quality dish. I think that’s my favorite dish.

Sarah
Awesome. I’m gonna make sure to try it even though it’s really hard to find good new products over here in Spain.

All right. Thank you so much for your time. It has been a real pleasure talking to you. I hope our audience enjoyed it just as much as I did. I found it super interesting. And we’ll make sure that we’re gonna advertise your book on our website once it’s out. So make sure you’re gonna send it to us. And yeah, there’s anything else you want to mention or share with our audience, now’s the time.

Shelita
I would just say, reach out to me. I am an open book. So I am available to reach out to, talk to me about anything, or even it can be about space or school. I’m looking for mothers to talk to me or anyone who just feels like they’re in a sticky place in academics. Feel free to reach out to me.

Sarah
Thank you so much for these kind words. And thank you so much for your time.

Shelita
Thank you

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