Lori Sandberg of Albin is one of 20 undergraduate and graduate students selected for the 2009 NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Md.

The NASA Academy is a unique summer experience that exposes its students to NASA’s most important current and planned science, engineering, education, and technology enterprises. It also offers training in non-technical areas such as: management, budgeting, safety, personnel, career development, leadership, space law, and international cooperation. Besides attending lectures and workshops, students are involved in supervised research in GSFC laboratories and participate in visits to NASA headquarters, various NASA centers and facilities, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and other space-related academic laboratories and industries.

During the academy, students have the opportunity to meet and network with prominent professionals from NASA and associates, as well as students with their same interests.

Once students complete the academy program, they are inducted into the NASA Academy Alumni Association.

Sandberg will serve as a payload development team member for NASA’s Primordial Inflation Polarization Balloon. PIPER will measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background in search of the signature of primordial gravity waves. The mission is targeted to launch in 2012.

Sandberg will return to the University of Wyoming this fall as a senior in mechanical engineering and will serve as Tau Beta Pi corresponding secretary-engineering honoree, vice president of the America Society of Mechanical Engineers and is a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority. She is the daughter of Terry and Joanne Sandberg of Albin.