From Nash County to NASA
As a high school student in Nash County, Chad Brown never imagined that he would be a NASA engineer planning missions to the moon and Mars. Today that is just what he is doing — and his story is helping North Carolina teachers inspire current students.
Those teachers are the first NC Space Education Ambassadors, a program also known as NCSEA. Recently, the group has been engaged in professional development related to NASA’s Next-Gen STEM “Moon to Mars” content. “During our wrap up session for that topic, we invited Chad as a NASA professional to speak to the ambassadors, to link the educational content with real-world applications, in particular to the current Artemis mission,” explains Jobi Cook, NC Space Grant’s associate director.
The teachers were thrilled to hear directly from Brown. The NC native is now an advanced planning and payload integration manager for the exploration ground systems program at NASA Kennedy Space Center. The ambassadors learned about the Artemis project — to the moon and beyond — and were inspired to bring knowledge back to their classrooms to help develop the next generation of space explorers and their support teams.
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