This is Your Future in the Making

Conceived as a kind of innovative ideas incubator, instructors stand back as guides and mentors while letting students from different backgrounds work on topics of interest.

Lewis, who grew up playing with microscopes and chemistry kits, has been researching -- and making significant progress toward solving -- the problem of salmonella bacteria infections since his first year at Iowa State.

Stewart, a mechanical engineering student at Iowa State, is living her dream of helping to explore the stars as part of the NASA Pathways Internships Program. Stewart has worked alongside astronauts and mission controllers and is gathering data that could inform future manned missions to Mars.