Five Cornell graduate students – Daniel Cellucci, Nicholas Cheney, Brian Koopman, Ethan Ritz and Jason Yosinski – and 61 other graduate students around the nation have been selected as Space Technology Research Fellows by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Cornell and Georgia Institute of Technology had more students chosen than any other institution; both had five.

Students were chosen for showing “significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our Nation’s science, exploration and economic future.”

The fellows will conduct innovative space technology research on their respective campuses, at NASA centers and at nonprofit U.S. research and development laboratories.

NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program challenges academia to examine the theoretical feasibility of ideas and approaches that are critical to making science, space travel and exploration more effective, affordable and sustainable. The program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is dedicated to innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA’s future missions.