The Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium awarded undergraduate fellowships in the Fall of 2000 to students at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa and Hilo, and the Community Colleges. At Manoa and Hilo, the awards were given for space-related research and provided a stipend of $3000 per semester to each recipient. At the Community Colleges, Fellows received stipends that depended on the scope of the projects.

University of Hawai'i at Manoa:

• Kendall Ching, a senior in Electrical Engineering, will use electronic simulation software to design and test a new, high-efficiency amplifier. Kendall's project, titled "High Efficiency Microwave Transistor Amplifiers," will aid the quest for smaller, power-efficient amplifiers for space based communication and sensor systems. Kendall's mentor is Dr. Wayne Shiroma of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Final Report
• Georgiana Young, a senior in Geology and Geophysics, will continue her study of Mars Global Surveyor data to research the corrugated landforms, known as aureole material, around Olympus Mons volcano on Mars. She is creating a database of landform shapes and sizes to test the hypothesis that the material has a volcanic origin. Her work, titled "Analysis of the Olympus Mons Aureole Material on Mars using MGS Data," is being conducted under mentor Dr. Peter Mouginis-Mark, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology.

• Keith Sunderlin, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, will be continuing his research on the use of strain gauges and piezo-electric material to make a velocity sensor for dead-reckoning navigation in space or underwater environments. Keith's project, titled "Omni-directional Velocity Sensing Whisker," is being conducted under mentor Dr. Song K. Choi of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

• Melanie Yamauchi, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, will work with composite and piezoelectric materials with mentor Dr. Mehrdad Ghasemi Nejhad of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her project, titled "Design, Manufacture, and Testing of an Active Composite Panel Prototype with Vibration Suppression and Precision Positioning," is part of a larger research program, including former Space Grant Fellows, to test and monitor structural positioning performance of metals for intelligent aeronautical and aerospace structures.

• Scott Sufak, a junior in Mechanical Engineering, will work on a project titled, "Development of an Autonomous Vehicle Health Monitoring System." Under the direction of mentor Dr. Song Choi of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Scott is designing and fabricating a fault detection system to monitor pressure, moisture, and temperature. This research benefits the space industry's need for early warning systems on vehicles, especially unpiloted or robotic systems, working in extreme environments.

• Reid Takamiya, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, will be working on the simultaneous precision positioning and axial vibration suppression capabilities of intelligent-composite active struts. His work, titled "Design, Manufacture, and Testing of a Coarse/Fine Active Composite Strut Prototype with Vibration Suppression and Precision Positioning," will be performed under mentor Dr. Mehrdad Ghasemi Nejhad of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

• Michael Lurvey, a junior in International Business, will be working on a project, titled "Drop Deployable Instrument Package" under the guidance of mentor Dr. Kent Bridges of the Department of Botany. He will design and test a robust instrument system to collect temperature and humidity measurements that can withstand remote deployment to remote locations.

• Jeffrey P. Taylor, a junior in Marine Science, will be working on a project, titled "The Effects of Volcanic Fog on 'SeaWiFS' Imagery in the Lee of Hawai`i." Jeffrey will investigate how atmospheric parameters affect satellite data acquisition of chlorophyll concentrations in eddies off the Big Island. His project includes data from the SeaWiFS ocean color sensor, drifter buoy, and shipboard samples. Mentor for this project is Dr. Robert Bidigare of the Oceanography Department at U. H. Manoa.

• Kevin Sweeney, a junior in Physics, will develop a computer program to model the distribution of very faint objects in the Coma cluster. With mentor Dr. Michael West of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Kevin aims to use the model to help establish that these objects are intergalactic globular clusters. The title of his project is "Intracluster Globular Clusters in the Coma Cluster of Galaxies."

• Waiete Williams, a junior in Tropical Horticulture, will work on a project titled, "Growing Tomato Seeds Exposed to Outerspace and Undersea Environments." She will investigate the germination, growth, and reproduction of seeds that were exposed to these extreme environments. Working under the direction of mentor Dr. Inge White, Waiete will look for differences between seeds flown in 1997 on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, placed in deep-sea sealed containers, and kept at controlled surface conditions.