Nicole McGaa: Ensuring safe travels in space

Nicole McGaa: Ensuring safe travels in space

What do meteor showers, medicine, and MIT have in common? Aerospace engineering major Nicole McGaa.

The senior has long been drawn to both space and medicine. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she would search for good hillsides for watching meteor showers with her brother and father. Meanwhile, her favorite TV shows featured doctors and healers as main characters. The “Star Trek” series was a particular favorite, not just for characters like the physician Beverly Crusher but also for its scientific subject matter and diverse cast.

“I saw space as a place that was open for possibilities. The fact that ‘Star Trek’ is in a space setting is what invites people to think about what the future will be like and if it will it be better,” McGaa says. “Can we use space as a catalyst to make society more equitable?”

When it came time to choose a path after high school, McGaa says, “I thought, ‘Space and medicine are the two things that I really enjoy, I’ll pick one of them eventually.’ But I got to MIT, and I realized by fate that MIT was one of the few places in the world that did space medicine, and things took off from there.”

McGaa’s research in bioastronautics, which is the study of biological systems in space, centers around making space travel safer for human bodies and minds. In the future, she envisions herself working with astronauts in a clinical setting, researching and characterizing the physiological impacts of spaceflight and creating countermeasures for such effects through physical, mechanical, or pharmaceutical solutions.

Emergency medicine

McGaa credits her time as a certified EMT with MIT Emergency Medical Services for guiding her path in bioastronautics and giving her the clinical perspective necessary for her work. “Space medicine is very much tied to emergency medicine,” she explains. “A lot of the people who first did space medicine then work in the ER, and many continue to this day to do both. It’s been good for me to help people directly while I’m also trying to help people at a more aspirational level through space.”

McGaa joined MIT EMS during her first year at the Institute, inspired by the kindness and care she received from an ER nurse in her past. As an EMT, she wished to provide such compassion for others, or, better yet, help them avoid medical emergencies completely.

Participating in MIT EMS is one of the most rewarding things she’s done at MIT, according to McGaa. She says responding to emergency calls on campus and throughout Boston and Cambridge, and learning how to provide care alongside other passionate volunteers has been invaluable to her life goals as a medical provider.

Indigenous science

Indigenous representation at MIT and in the scientific community at large is significant to McGaa, who is Oglala Lakota. With the Native American and Indigenous Association, of which she is now the co-president, she has worked to advance initiatives supporting Indigenous people at the Institute, through efforts such as establishing the Indigenous Peoples’ Center, revising MIT’s land acknowledgment, and successfully advocating for the hiring of MIT’s first tenure-track Native American professor.

McGaa continues to work on expanding inclusionary measures for Native students on campus. She is seeking approval for a smudging policy that would allow Indigenous students to engage in the religious practice of burning sage in select areas. Creating a space for students to participate in cultural traditions that they have been historically deprived of is an important way to promote community, according to McGaa, “Native students are, like me, trying to understand and reconnect with our traditions and culture. My generation is really trying to decolonize our identities to heal the kind of pain that our parents and grandparents went through.”

Last year, McGaa assembled an Indigenous rocketry team for First Nations Launch, a national competition in which students compete through designing, building, and launching a high-powered rocket. This was MIT’s first time sending a team, and McGaa headed the project as captain, elected by her peers.

Out-of-this-world research

The bioastronautics field offers a broad array of research topics. McGaa’s focus is on understanding the physiology of astronauts and designing countermeasures for the effects of space exploration that could be useful for people on Earth as well.

With graduate student Rachel Bellisle and Professor and Media Lab Director Dava Newman, McGaa has worked on MIT’s Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit, which helps astronauts avoid muscle and bone loss during duration spaceflight. This research aligns with McGaa’s overall goal to address different “physiological detriments” caused by space. She also hopes to study spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS, a poorly understood condition that involves the brain and eye changes that impact astronauts. She plans to make this the focus of her studies moving forward, in a PhD program, likely followed by an MD degree.

As an undergraduate, McGaa also interned at the NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center with Northrop Grumman Co. where she worked in test flight. And last summer, she worked at Blue Origin in fault management and systems autonomy in aerospace engineering. Noting the contrast between the longstanding government agency and the much newer company, she credited these experiences with strengthening her discipline and initiative, respectively.

To McGaa, all the areas she has explored at MIT, while seemingly varied, fall together in a cohesive way. “Emergency medicine, Indigenous science and advocacy, and space medicine, all connect to my Indigenous values, of excellence in engineering, and caretaking, and community,” she says. Making conditions better for humans in space, the “most hostile environment possible,” will translate to benefits for humanity on Earth as well. “The whole point of going to space is to solve hard things,” she says. “Space is not just for operational drive, it’s clearly for inspirational ambition, as well.”

Overcoming LLM Hallucinations Using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are revolutionizing how we process and generate language, but they’re imperfect. Just like humans might see shapes in clouds or faces on the moon, LLMs can also ‘hallucinate,’ creating information that isn’t accurate. This phenomenon, known as LLM hallucinations, poses a growing…

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Has An Uncapped Framerate, But No Visual Presets Or Modes On Consoles

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Has An Uncapped Framerate, But No Visual Presets Or Modes On Consoles

Dragon’s Dogma 2, the long-awaited sequel in Capcom’s fantasy RPG series, is right around the corner, hitting PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 22. I visited Capcom last month to play the game for about three hours, and you can read Game Informer’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 preview impressions here, but I also spoke to director Hideaki Itsuno about how the game will run on consoles. 

Sitting in Capcom’s San Francisco, California, office, just 30 minutes to go until my interview with Itsuno, I saw that he tweeted about Dragon’s Dogma 2’s framerate. Specifically, he revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that Dragon’s Dogma 2 will release with an uncapped framerate. It was an interesting announcement, considering “uncapped framerate” is typically something I associate with PCs – not the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. 

But, with that tweet out, I took my interview as an opportunity to learn more about what this means for console players. It turns out, Dragon’s Dogma 2 will not feature multiple visual modes – there won’t be a Graphics mode and a Performance mode, like what you might see in games like the recently released Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, for example. Instead, Capcom’s latest will feature one singular mode that’s on by default, and that mode also features uncapped framerate. 

“The game has an uncapped framerate,” Itsuno tells me through a translator. “We’re aiming to go at around or higher than 30 FPS. That is for consoles as well. There are some functions that you can turn on and off, but there aren’t multiple sets of options that you can change at once [likely alluding to visual presets seen in the options of other games on consoles today]. But yeah, the frame rate will come uncapped for all consoles.”

Just to be sure, I asked for clarification around the potential for multiple modes and was told Dragon’s Dogma 2 has just one visual mode, so don’t expect a preset that prioritizes performance over visual fidelity or vice versa. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2 hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 22. 

For more, check out the latest Dragon’s Dogma 2 gameplay trailer, and then find out why it’s one of our most anticipated games of the year. After that, read about how Dragon’s Dogma 2’s main story campaign is about as long as the first game’s, and then read about Capcom’s decision to have just one save file in the game. 

How do you feel about Capcom’s approach to visual settings with Dragon’s Dogma 2? Let us know in the comments below!

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation”

A new MIT Bootcamps hybrid program recently convened 34 innovators to tackle substance use disorder from multiple perspectives. Together, they built and pitched new ventures with the goal of bringing life-saving innovations to the field.

The Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Ventures program featured workshops, case studies, and interactive sessions with researchers, entrepreneurs, and doctors who brought a multidisciplinary approach to tackling early detection, access to care and health equity, dual diagnosis, treatment, and relapse prevention. Through a rigorous selection process, the program cohort was chosen for their complementary, diverse backgrounds along with their passion for solving problems related to substance use.

Hybrid by design, the first three months of the program consisted of foundational work online, including a new asynchronous SUD 101 course led by Brown University Professor Carolina Haass-Koffler and live online sessions focused on topics like intellectual property and technology transfer. The program concluded with a five-day MIT Bootcamp on campus, where learners built and pitched a new venture to a panel of judges.

“Building a venture in the substance use disorder space is exceptionally challenging,” says Hanna Adeyema, director of MIT Bootcamps. “Our goal was not only to educate our learners but also to inspire and to ignite a sense of community. We achieved it by building relationships in a diverse group united by a shared vision to bring lifesaving products to market.”

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation”

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Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Ventures by MIT Bootcamps
Video: MIT Open Learning

Helping to solve an epidemic

In 2021, more than 46 million people suffered from substance use disorder in the United States. This means one out of every seven people in the U.S. can benefit from innovations in this field. In 2022, MIT Open Learning received a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to create an entrepreneurship program for substance use disorder researchers. As the primary source of early-stage funding in this space, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIDA are focused on initiatives, like the MIT Bootcamps SUD Ventures program, to help bring innovation to the field. 

Armed with a deep expertise in innovation and immersive educational experiences, MIT Open Learning’s team, including MIT Bootcamps, hit the ground running to build the SUD Ventures program. Other team members included Cynthia Breazeal, Erdin Beshimov, Carolina Haass-Koffler, Aikaterini “Katerina” Bagiati, and Andrés Felipe Salazar-Gómez. 

“The program connected substance use disorder knowledge and resources, including funding opportunities, to entrepreneurial competences and multifaceted skills of the learners,” says Cynthia Breazeal, dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning and principal investigator for the project. “We have delivered a dynamic learning experience, sensitive to the root causes behind the innovation deficit in this field.”  

Instilling the spirit of innovation  

With 10-hour days, the immersive program blended formal and informal instruction to deliver a holistic and practical educational experience on substance use disorder and innovation. Learners attended case studies with health care companies like Prapela, Invistics, and RTM Vital Signs, moderated by Erdin Beshimov, the founder of MIT Bootcamps. They also attended workshops by MIT faculty, lectures by members of the NIH and NIDA, and interactive sessions with local startup veterans and medical professionals. 

Learners walked away from the sessions motivated to solve problems, equipped with tangible next steps for their businesses. Bill Aulet inspired learners to leverage their own innovation ecosystems and shared how MIT is “raising the bar” of the quality of entrepreneurship education. Professor Eric von Hippel, a pioneer of user innovation, encouraged learners to tap into clinicians, nurses, and individuals with lived and living experiences as an important source of innovation within the health-care system. To give the clinical perspective from Massachusetts General Hospital, cardiac anesthesiologist Nathaniel Sims and former MGH Innovation Support Center director Harry DeMonaco energized learners with a personal story of successfully bringing medical device innovation to market and how to work with hospitals and early-stage adopters.

“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation and what it looks like to be able to work in a big way, and to be able to think in an even bigger way,” says learner Melissa “Dr. Mo” Dittberner. A resident of Volin, South Dakota, Dittberner is the CEO and founder of Straight Up Care, a platform for peer specialists to help people with mental health and substance use disorders. As an entrepreneur in the substance use disorder space, Dittberner knows what it takes to bring a business to life.

Bridging disciplines to create impact

In the evenings, the cohort broke out into teams of five to collaborate on building a venture related to substance use disorder. Coaches provided guidance and the tough feedback teams need in order to build a venture that solves a real problem. With vast differences in age, background, industry, and how they came to make an impact on substance use disorder, each team had experts in many different verticals, ultimately leading learners to a more thoughtful and potent solution. 

“One of the things MIT Bootcamps does really well is bring multiple disciplines to innovate together,” says Smit Patel, a pharmacist and digital health strategist who participated in the program. “We have seen a lot of silo innovation happening [in health care]. We have also seen problems being solved in piecemeal. How can we come together as a collective force — clinician and entrepreneur, a technologist, someone who has gone through this experience themselves — to build a solution?”

Dittberner echoed Patel’s sentiment, emphasizing the strength of the MIT Bootcamps community. “They’ve all kind of brought this different flavor,” Dittberner says. “I have created friendships and bonds that will last forever, which is so crucial to being able to be successful in the [SUD] space.” 

Intent on building a community of domain expert entrepreneurs, the SUD Ventures program will continue to bring together innovators to solve acute problems in the substance use space. With another three years of funding for this program, Adeyema says MIT Bootcamps’ goal is to nurture the community of innovators brought together by this program, enabling them to bring their ventures to life and create meaningful impact to society.

This program and its research are supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. This award is subject to the Cooperative Agreement Terms and Conditions of Award as set forth in RFA DA-22-020, entitled “Growing Great Ideas: Research Education Course in Product Development and Entrepreneurship for Life Science Researchers.” The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health.