SPC Old Boy to intern with NASA

Taran John, AI PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Wellington
School of Engineering and Computer Science

SPC Old Boy (2013 - 2017)

Taran has been studying, teaching and working at Victoria University for the last 8 years, working on AI programming, with one particular project being used by dermatologists to detect melanomas.

Recently, Taran was awarded the prestigious New Zealand Space Scholarship (alongside other recipients) will intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, working alongside scientists and engineers contributing to world-leading NASA space missions.

Congratulations Taran, we wish you all the best.

“I'm incredibly grateful to the New Zealand Space Agency for awarding me the New Zealand Space Scholarship - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work alongside world-class scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California for the next 3 months. Thank you to the team at NZSA for all the incredible hard work behind the scenes to make this possible.

🤖 What I'll be working on: Developing an AI assistant to facilitate interaction between astronauts and surface systems for in-situ sampling operations. This project combines my PhD research in computer vision and machine learning with real-world space exploration challenges - striving to create an intelligent system that can help astronauts make critical decisions during surface operations on other planets.”