Hannah Roberts, a Ph.D. student conducting research in the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, recently represented UF in a prestigious collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Academy and Space Force, where she trained cadets in synthetic biology techniques for spaceflight experiments.
As the only UF student selected for the project, Roberts traveled to the Air Force Academy in Colorado to support cadets in designing, launching, and analyzing biological experiments aboard zero-gravity parabolic flights. The work is part of a larger mission funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. It also included academic partners at Washington University in St. Louis.