Alec Meade was born and raised in New York City, USA and studied Computer Science and Economics as an Undergraduate at Brown University. Upon graduation, he worked as a Data Scientist at Microsoft for two years working on natural language processing and data privacy. Following this he spent two years as a Data Scientist in the autonomous vehicle industry where he was responsible for developing predictive maintenance regimes and conducting reliability analysis at Waymo, Google’s self driving car division. This past summer Alec spent 2 months at NASA – Goddard Space Flight Center as a software engineer intern implementing and improving delay tolerant networking protocols for satellite communications. Most recently, Alec has matriculated into a graduate degree program to pursue a Masters of Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration at Harvard University. Alec intends to apply to the astronaut candidate program when it reopens.

“I am honored to receive the SCaN scholarship to attend the SGC. For me, this is a once in a lifetime chance to meet and learn from other professionals from all over the world that are equally excited about the future of humanity’s space endeavours.”

I am currently pursuing my PhD in Mathematics at Colorado State University. My current research uses a math tool called a sheaf to compare models of the ionosphere. The goal of this project is to provide information on radio propagation conditions for amateur and professional radio operators. I am also working on a collaboration with a group of topologists from the Women in Computational Topology workshop to use something called persistant homology to study the resolution needed to accurately evaluate the amount of holes in a porous sample. Outside of research, I work with the Association for Women in Mathematics chapter at CSU and help run an intramural inner tube water polo math department team. I also love teaching mathematics to undergraduate students and inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

“Space has been a fascination of mine since I was five. That fascination is what inspired me to apply for my NASA internship this summer and I am so happy to bring that passion to the SGC. Winning the NASA SCaN SGAC scholarship means so much to me and I can’t wait to work with all of the participants in Washington.”