U of I biological engineering student secures NASA internship

When biological engineering  junior Emily Myers toured NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in high school, she thought it would be the only NASA tour of her lifetime. Now throughout the summer of 2026, she walks the halls of NASA’s Ames Research Center five days a week as a NASA intern, contributing to projects that could shape the future of human spaceflight.

Myers’s journey to NASA began with a passion for aerospace sparked by the Idaho Science and Aerospace Scholars (ISAS) program. This program, combined with opportunities at University of Idaho, transformed her interest into a career path.

ISAS is a statewide STEM initiative that gives Idaho high school students hands-on experience with aerospace, engineering and space exploration through a semester-long curriculum and team-based projects. The semester-long class tasked students with planning a mission to Mars, dividing students into teams that were assigned different tasks. Myers was on the experimentation side, where she tested the theories and prototypes that other teams put forward. 

“The ISAS program gave me the opportunity to see myself as scientist or an engineer,” Myers said. “I saw so many possibilities for what I could become.” 

The ISAS program culminated in a trip to NASA’s JPL where the class got to tour the facilities, seeing both the Mars Perseverance rover and the Space Shuttle Endeavor up close.

“I touched the Space Shuttle Endeavor; I physically touched it. I don’t know if I was supposed to, but I did; the experience reminds me of where I want to end up,” Emily said.

As she started thinking about college, Myers wondered what path would best suit her interests. While Myers has held an interest in aerospace for a while, it wasn’t until she tore her ACL that she discovered a new passion for biological engineering.

“I knew since I was little that I liked to solve problems, but it wasn’t until I tore my ACL skiing that I realized what I wanted to major in,” Myers said. “I was fascinated by the doctors performing the surgery, but I was really interested in the type of graft I received.”

When the time for university rolled around, Myers chose University of Idaho, following in her brother and father’s footsteps. In Moscow, Myers worked on undergraduate research in Professor Nathan Schiele’s Tendon and Tissue Engineering lab, studying how stem cells develop into tendon tissue and how engineered tissues can improve healing after injury. There, Myers helps manage mouse cell cultures, cultivating tendons to use in medical research.

Outside of the lab, Myers serves as a College of Engineering ambassador, introducing other high school students to engineering at U of I. During an ambassador training, she heard about college internship opportunities through the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium. Located on the Moscow campus, ISGC provides funding for aerospace research to a wide variety of students. Through this program, she found a listing for a life sciences intern position at NASA Ames.

“It was perfect because I had done every single item on the list of both required and preferred qualifications. I learned about biology lab processes, such as proper safety protocols and stem cell management, from doing undergrad research here at University of Idaho,“ Myers said.

At Myers’s internship at NASA’s Ames Research Center, she nurtures stem cells into spherical clumps of brain tissue called organoids. Then, the team tests the effects of radiation on brain tissue. The goal is to understand where radiation localizes in the human brain and what it does to brain health.

“One of the best parts of this experience has been working with and learning from other students,” Myers said. “I was a little lost during the explanation of our project when we got to the genetics side, but another intern was a geneticist, so they were able to catch me up to speed later.”

Myers participates in lab meetings and building meetings, working alongside a number of other scientists. One of the goals of her summer research is to find a way to send these organoids into orbit, launching Myers’s hard work into space.