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‘Are You Ready?’: DAF marks National Mentoring Month
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By Space Force
A prototype F-16 Fight Falcon cockpit collapsible ladder for agile combat employment and contingency operations emerged as the 2024 Spark Tank winner at the Pentagon.
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By NASA
Dr. Nipa Phojanamongkolkij does not always do things the traditional way. As a systems engineer (SE) at Langley Research Center working closely with the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Nipa pushes boundaries and draws connections where few others would think to look. When she envisioned a way to use ChatGPT to help SE teams working on the Advanced Air Mobility Mission, she presented her initial idea to her team wondering, “Is this crazy?” Her idea evolved into a successful prototype, which is now used for air traffic management in the Airspace Operations and Safety Program. She has also leveraged natural language programming and NASA’s database of lessons learned to create a bot for flagging potential risks and mitigations in real time. Nipa’s journey in becoming the digital transformer she is today involves her ability to combine engineering principles and business outcomes with creative, human-centered approaches.
Nipa received an MS and PhD in industrial and systems engineering from Arizona State University after moving to the United States from Bangkok, Thailand, where she received her BS degree in electronics engineering. She joined NASA 15 years ago after honing her data analysis and process improvement skills in the business sector at Pepsi Corporation. Her previous experience molded her focus on demonstrating benefit and return on investment. In addition to a business-oriented mindset, Nipa credits much of her success at NASA to her abilities as an active listener, which helps her understand customer needs and address paint points.
One cross-cutting challenge Nipa noticed within the agency’s approach to SE was the issue of silos, particularly in handling requirements and research data. Many engineers stored information in documents on individual computers or SharePoint folders, making it difficult to share data and draw connections across missions, directorates, and centers. As a systems engineer, Nipa and her team work to pull these disparate elements into a connected digital format using methodology called model-based systems engineering (MBSE). “You can think of it like a gigantic database where you have everything connected—a table of research papers, a table of requirements, and a table of concept of operations documents,” she says.
However, using and leveraging this system requires specialized knowledge of the MBSE discipline and modeling language. To centralize system concept, architecture, and requirement data while democratizing access to it, Nipa conceived a way to leverage ChatGPT as an intermediary between the user and database. In fiscal year 2023, she received funding for her idea as a Digital Transformation Prototype Test, “Requirement Discovery Using Embedded Knowledge Graph with ChatGPT.” Nipa and her team developed a web-based dashboard that translates user questions into database queries and turns the database responses back into readable answers for the user. Nipa and her team curated the research used to create the database, reducing the chances of AI hallucination and misinformation. Using ChatGPT as a translator, general users benefitted from the system without needing to know how to formulate graph database queries.
Requirement creation through this system was seven times faster than traditional processes and yielded results comparable to those created by subject matter experts. In some cases, the approach even resulted in more creative requirements than human-generated ones. Nipa’s prototype allowed SEs to more efficiently analyze connections between existing requirements, predict new connections, and generate new requirements, streamlining critical processes for her team. The approach could benefit SEs across NASA centers, directorates, and missions and holds exciting potential for other use cases, such as generating candidate requirements and analyzing project risk. According to NASA Digital Engineering Lead Terry Hill, “The future of engineering is understanding how to do it from a data-centric perspective. Enabling the use of new and evolving technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large language models will aid our engineers to accomplish greater things and augment our workforce.”
Nipa and her team were recognized for their innovative work, receiving a Systems Engineering Technical Excellence Award (SETEA) in 2024 under the “Advancement of SE” category. Nipa’s out-of-the-box thinking has also positioned her as a trailblazer amongst her peers. “Nipa was ahead of everyone in terms of understanding what Digital Transformation is,” says Ian Levitt, Concepts Team Manager at Langley Research Center and co-lead on the Requirement Discovery Prototype Test. “She is extremely smart as well as practical, which is a rare combination. She has wonderful insights and helps me see more clearly what I am trying to do.” As a leader in the Digital Transformation community, Nipa recognizes the importance of collaboration, noting that her transformative work would not have been successful without her team. Their trust is what makes her ideas possible, along with Digital Transformation’s willingness to take chances on innovative, cutting-edge ideas. “They’re at the forefront of technology, so they’re receptive to high-risk projects,” she says. “That’s why I enjoy working with the Digital Transformation team.”
In turn, Nipa is excited to continue building community and momentum around transformation initiatives. Her team’s work inspired one group at Johnson Space Center to replicate their requirement discovery approach, and she has received multiple inquiries for demos on their prototype. Seeing how her work inspires and impacts others at the agency is one way she measures success. Whether she is connecting data sources or people, Nipa continues to push toward a more unified NASA, exemplifying what it means to be a digital transformer.
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By NASA
The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) America Reyes Wang, Sepideh Khajehei, Julie Nottage, and Ryan Felton. Their commitment to the NASA mission represents the talent, camaraderie, and vision needed to explore this world and beyond.
Space Biosciences Star: America Reyes Wang
America Reyes Wang serves as the Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program (BSP) Lead in the Space Biosciences Research Branch, where she guides a team of support scientists and a logistics coordinator in planning and performing detailed, collaborative dissections to maximize the scientific return from biological investigations. Under her leadership, the BSP team has contributed over 5,000 samples to the NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC), approximately half of which were collected in the last 10 months.
Earth Science Star: Sepideh Khajehei
Sepideh Khajehei is a NASA Earth eXchange (NEX) Data and Research Scientist in the Biospheric Science Branch, for the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute. She is recognized for her dedicated support of the NASA Administrator’s Earth Information Center, and recently for her outstanding support for an urgent request to revise climate indices just days before the October 7, 2024, opening of NASA’s Hometown Climate Dashboard at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Space Science & Astrobiology Star: Julie Nottage
Julie Nottage continuously goes above and beyond in her role as the Space and Earth Sciences Facilities Service Manager. She keeps a multi-use interdisciplinary science building running across all aspects of operations and is the go-to person for any problem. Her can-do approach and wealth of knowledge ensures the facility’s high-quality operation that enables scientists and engineers to focus on their research and instrument work. Her quality work and extensive coordination of the Voluntary Protection Program allowed these month-long inspections to run smoothly with an improved safety outcome.
Space Science & Astrobiology Star: Ryan Felton
Ryan Felton, a NASA Postdoctoral Management Fellow with the Exobiology Branch, is recognized for his successful coordination of an engaging community-wide seminar series focused on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML). This seminar series featured four speakers so far over six months on a variety of exciting topics to advance AI/ML knowledge and use in the branch’s research.
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By Space Force
The changes are part of an ongoing effort to streamline and modernize Total Force enlisted development following the separation of DAFI 36-2670, Total Force Development, into more specialized instructions.
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By Space Force
The American Indian Science and Engineering Society National Conference brought together thousands of indigenous students, educators and professionals to promote opportunities and celebrate achievements in STEM.
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