Another Summer at PVL!

 Ahh, summertime! You'd be surprised by the number of people who think us academics just get four months of vacation. Instead, it's the busiest time of the year as we turn to focus almost exclusively on our research. But for those early career academics just stepping into research, it can be a formative experience. It's not just the work, but also the environment, the people and the excitement of having your own project in the midst of a talented and supportive group. I still remember my summer undergraduate research from back in the day. In this week's post, Ella shares her experience during her second summer with us. (Image Above: Kate, Brock and Ella canoeing at Sunnyside, the smallest ice-cream sizes at Kawartha, and the pizza party!)

 By Ella Ordinaria 

Hello PVL Blog! It’s me, Ella, the PVL undergrad! I wrote my first blog last summer, and here I am again – full circle!

This summer, I once again received the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award, which allowed me to work in the lab full-time. My work focused on revising the Cruise Phase Microbial Survival (CPMS) model that Moores and Schuerger developed in 2020. The original CPMS model calculated the bioburden reduction on the Europa Clipper (EC) spacecraft under a direct and Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist (VEEGA) trajectory. However, when EC launched in October of last year, it followed a Mars-Earth Gravity Assist (MEGA) trajectory instead. So, we revised the CPMS model to reflect the MEGA trajectory.

I started working on this project in early 2025, but things didn’t really pick up until summer. After all the modeling work, our goal was to produce a 2,500-word research note – which brought me my greatest challenge: writing. I was overwhelmed by the messy notes I’d written throughout the year, and the constant revisions made the words jumble together. As many of you know, scientific writing often feels like a never-ending cycle of writing, erasing, and rewriting.

Ultimately, we published the paper in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS). Seeing the work out there was so rewarding! I’m very grateful for the opportunity to write a first-author paper and for Dr. John Moores’s trust in entrusting this project to me. This would also not be possible without Dr. Moores, Dr. Schuerger, and PhD student Grace Bischoff, the co-authors of the paper. Their support and revisions have helped me grow immensely as a writer. I’m honored to receive guidance from the people I look up to! I also presented this work at the Lassonde Undergraduate Research Conference and did an interview on the AAS YouTube channel with Frank Timmins, the AAS Journals Deputy Editor-in-Chief. 

With the CPMS work crossed off my list, I spent the rest of the summer working on the Orbiting Sample (OS) container project. As with the CPMS model, we’re interested in bioburden reductions on the OS container, one of the key components of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. Since the MSR mission is one of the most ambitious planetary missions ever developed, the concept of “breaking the chain” of contact between Mars and Earth is a critical component. Coming from a biochemistry background, my main challenge on this project was the math and physics required to modify the original model to incorporate the energy balance during the cooling and heating phases of the OS container. I’m currently in the writing phase of this project which is a part of the process I do enjoy, though it’s also something I’d love to get better at. That said, most of my work at PVL has centered on modeling bioburden reductions on spacecraft, which happens to be one of my favorite concepts in astrobiology. Planetary protection excites me because it is an important consideration for forward and backward contamination, protecting Earth from foreign materials while ensuring the integrity of space exploration.

Work aside, this has probably been the most dynamic and eventful four months at PVL! With new students joining the lab, this summer was packed with fun socials and plenty of laughs. Some of our activities included rock climbing at Basecamp, trekking downtown to tackle the humongous ice cream portions at Kawartha Dairy, the annual summer pizza party, grabbing an iced matcha latte with Kate every morning (which we called the DOTD – drink of the day) and my personal favorite, the ultimate undergraduate adventure: canoeing at Sunnyside Beach. 

John and I at the Lassonde Summer Undergraduate Research Conference! 

Although summer has come to an end, thankfully my time at PVL has not. I’ll be taking the fall and winter semesters off for an internship, but I’ll still be involved with PVL to continue the OS project. Once a PVLer, always a PVLer!