Learn more about Alexia Harper, Mechanical Engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Facility's Mechanical Engineering Branch, the go-to place for the comprehensive development of instrument and spacecraft structures and deployment mechanisms. She works among hundreds of designers, engineers, and technicians to build the largest spacecraft ever assembled at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory.

At the core of scientific visualization is the representation of data graphically - through images, animations, and videos - to improve understanding and develop insight. Data visualizers develop data-driven images, maps, and visualizations from information collected by Earth-observing satellites, airborne missions, and ground measurements. Visualizations allow us to explore data, phenomena and behavior; they are particularly effective for showing large scales of time and space, and "invisible" processes (e.g. flows of energy and matter) as integral parts of the models.

The Guidance, Navigation, and Control Lead basically is in charge of all of the components to make sure the spacecraft is pointed where the scientists want it to be pointed.

Students investigate the effects of Hurricane Sandy and make a scale model of the storm over the continental United States to assess the area of impact.

Explore using units in calculations with the Leaf Area Index (LAI). LAI is a ratio that describes the number of square meters of leaves per square meter of available land surface. Because of the units in the ratio, it is dimensionless.

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.