On Tuesday, NASA mathematician Alan Hylton flew in from Washington, DC to talk to Albany High School students about his unconventional path to the U.S. agency responsible for space research and travel.
Hylton also spoke about his latest project: Creating technology to communicate with spaceships, satellites and planets – including future missions to the moon and Mars – a solar internet.
Alan Hylton spent his childhood north of Seattle, and after attending Bellingham High School he spent a year at the Whatcom Community College. Some family rearrangement brought him to Cleveland, and he picked up his education at Cleveland State University with a major in computer engineering. About a year into his time at CSU, he joined the NASA Glenn Research Center as a contractor working in biosciences; his projects studied the effects of microgravity on blood vessel growth and functional imaging techniques.
Somewhere along the way he picked up math as a double major, dropped engineering, and then kept marching down the math and NASA routes after graduation. After he received his master's, Hylton attended a math conference that showed him what he should be doing with his time. Shortly after, he joined NASA as a federal employee in space communications. He has dedicated his professional career to the vision of a solar system internet, bringing as many students along with him as he can.
Students were enthralled by the discussion and hung around afterward to ask more questions. Hylton was the final presenter in the three-part “Data Science Lunch and Learn Series” Albany High did in partnership with the University at Albany.
