Alumni Spotlight: Emma Herzog ’24

To say that Emma Herzog ’24 (front row in photo above, in striped shirt) has a wide variety of interests and talents is an understatement. At Steward, she was president of her senior class; served as an admissions ambassador; was an honor roll student; won regional awards for her art; tested her problem-solving skills as a member of the Model UN team; participated in a 12-week fashion program at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; played for the field hockey team; and graduated with the entrepreneurship endorsement.

Today, she is a sophomore at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is majoring in a field that she finds endlessly fascinating: aerospace engineering. 

Last fall, Ms. Herzog was surprised and thrilled to be offered the position of project manager for NASA’s Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) mission after applying to be a team member. In this leadership role for the largest space grant project in Colorado, she and her team are designing printed circuit boards (PCBs), called LunaSats, that are equipped with sensors that track lunar seismology. 

“It’s essentially the study of earthquakes, but on the moon,” she explained. “We also design and fabricate the housing deployment module for the LunaSats — the mechanism that places them on the lunar surface. The cool thing about our data is that it will be collected via distributed science, meaning we have a bunch of LunaSats each collecting and sharing data, amplifying the accuracy of what we’re collecting.” GLEE also engages more than 200 teams in 40 countries by providing free LunaSats and accompanying educational modules to teach them about science on the moon. 

Ms. Herzog’s team is building a miniature version of our mission payload, comprising the LunaSats and the mechanism that deploys them. 

“This payload will launch in June on NASA’s Wallops Island launchpad to test how well our technology does in a space environment, ultimately raising our Technology Readiness Level (TRL), which is NASA’s way of classifying how ready a mission is for the final launch.”

Ms. Herzog is also an emeritus fellow in the Herbst Program of Engineering Ethics & Society, a grant-based program at the university that facilitates student research in a range of ethics-in-engineering topics. The grant enables Ms. Herzog to continue funding her chosen area of research (ethics and equity in the space economy) and aid new students in the program embarking on their own research.

A talented writer, Ms. Herzog recently authored a paper for Colorado Engineer Magazine, the university’s engineering, science, and technology publication. “Ethics and Equity in the Emerging Space Economy” explores the current competitions in the privatization of space, space mining, and congestion in the radio frequency (RF) spectrum, which is what allows ground stations to communicate with their satellites, orbiters, rovers, and space stations.

“I analyze how historical documentation like the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 led us to the current regulations we have today, allowing me to propose alterations and new systems that would allow for more equal access and balanced benefit distribution of space resources,” she explained. 

A proud Spartan, Ms. Herzog said, “I will always attribute my writing skills to Steward. The ability to write for a variety of audiences is one of the primary skills that allowed me so many opportunities in college.” She added, “Thanks to my Steward education, I can write motivational yet directional messages to my team, technical reports, and scientific overviews. As a fellow, I can write more socially motivating pieces that call for communal change. Those capabilities stemmed from the literary and lingual analytical skills I learned at Steward, especially in high school.”

Steward’s small class sizes, noted Ms. Herzog, “gave me so many easily accessible leadership opportunities that prepared me for my project manager position. Serving as class president, presenting in the entrepreneurship club, leading the fashion club, and working as a team in field hockey gave me the skills I need for college and for my role at NASA.”