Ishaan Mishra, a sophomore majoring in physics and computational science, was named a Goldwater Scholar, the preeminent honor for undergraduate students pursing degrees in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Mishra received a scholarship from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation to support his career goal of earning doctorate degree in aerospace engineering or applied plasma physics, with an emphasis on developing space propulsion systems. 

Mishra credits Rose-Hulman for the opportunities and experience that led to his receiving a Goldwater Scholarship. “Only at a college like Rose can you do one-on-one research with faculty from your first year,” said Mishra. 

This marks the third straight year that a Rose-Hulman student has been recognized as a Goldwater Scholar and the sixth within the past seven years. A total of 15 Rose-Hulman students have earned this distinction since 2004.

Mishra combined his passion for space propulsion and pursuit of research at the start of his first year at Rose-Hulman. He had an idea to build a high-resolution torsional pendulum thrust balance that could be used to facilitate testing of electric propulsion devices, which are used to maneuver satellites. He connected with Associate Professor of Physics and Optical Engineering Scott Kirkpatrick, PhD, who advised him on the thrust measurement stand. Mishra and Kirkpatrick presented their design at an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) conference and won the first place in the International Undergraduate Research and Development Exposition. 

In 2022, Mishra founded the Rose-Hulman Electric Propulsion Group, a student-led research group, to develop space propulsion devices. The goal of the group is to reduce the barrier to entry to electric propulsion research for undergraduates, as research in this field is mainly limited to graduate school labs. He is currently working with Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Ben Mertz, PhD, and the Rose-Hulman Electric Propulsion Group, to develop a gridded ion thruster on campus.

Mishra spent last summer at Cornell University in a National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates program on accelerator physics. His experience included working on the development of a unique method to measure beam sizes inside particle accelerators. He believes the experience working at Cornell offered a complementary perspective to his work at Rose.

“At Rose, you get one-on-one faculty mentor experience,” said Mishra. “But at Cornell, I got to experience working in a large university lab research group. It was very interesting to work with so many people in the same research field, including scientists, professors, and students.” The results of his research will be presented at the International Particle Accelerator Conference later this year.

He has also presented research on an independent computational project on plasma simulation in a thruster at the International Conference on Plasma Theory and Simulation in 2022. Mishra was heavily involved in the Rocketry Club and is a member of the Noblitt Scholar program Class of 2025.

Mishra will spend summer 2023 in a Science Undergraduate Lab Internship (SULI) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. He will be doing research on hall thrusters, which are a popular type of space propulsion device.

A total of 413 students from across the United States were named 2023 Goldwater Scholars, from an estimated applicant pool of 5,000 college sophomores and juniors from 427 academic institutions.