Job Description

 Resource Analyst Intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

When people think of NASA they think of people doing science and ground-breaking tech discoveries. However, there is also a less glamorous role, one that involves business majors! That’s what I did. Some people might be confused why there would be business roles in NASA which is fair. Business roles are used to manage missions and administrative programs. Specifically, a role known as the Resource Analyst Internship is used to help missions successfully launch and complete their goals.

A Resource Analyst intern is the intern version of a full-time Resource Analyst at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They basically get handed down easier tasks that Resource Analysts usually do. You can usually find these interns holed up in a cubicle or eating a lunch in the cafeteria with fellow interns. You can also find them sitting in on meetings with full-time staff, although the interns will probably not be saying anything. 

There are three descriptions that help to sum up the duties of a resource analyst intern 

• Teacher/Exam Grader 

• Detective (data analyst)

Janitor (clean files)

I’ll describe the work of a typical resource analyst intern using these three examples as a comparison to help with understanding. 

Teacher/Exam Grader 

 A large part of the responsibilities of resource analyst interns is to monitor the progress and status of the mission. The missions that I specifically worked on were the Mars 2020 rover program and the flagship Mars Sample Return endeavor. In this role, think of a teacher who grades exams. They look at students’ responses to exams and mark areas where there are discrepancies from the expected answer. They also work to develop strategies and reinforcement to make the students improve on the next tests. That’s what the resource analysts are- they work in conjunction with project managers to make sure everything is correct and on track. Engineers and scientists who are building components of the mission’s technology create a forecasted timeline in the beginning of the mission and continually update their progress. Resource analysts and their interns go in and check the progress at the end of every month and flag areas where there are differences in the expected progress and the actual progress. When there are differences they check in with the scientists to see what is going on and work out a way to get back on track. They also let the project managers know so they can handle it in a way that they see fit. 

                                  

Detective (Data Analyst)

Another responsibility of resource analyst interns is similar to that of a detective. Detectives look at situations and data and are able to pull insights to solve mysteries. They find trends and they use their analytical abilities to find important information. In the role of the resource analyst intern, we look for patterns and important insights in past financial and operational data. For example, one task is to use software like excel, power pivot, power query, and Dax functions to see graphs and charts to help visualize patterns. The data is used to show potential areas of concern, as well as areas that could be made more efficient. The interns will run analysis on this data and also create programs to make the chart generation and analysis automated. They present what they find to their managers, and suggest potential solutions for the issues that they find. 

Janitor (Cleaner)

Lastly, another responsibility of a resource analyst intern can be compared to that of a janitor. Janitors go through buildings and rooms and cleans them. They make things neat and make sure to remove things that are aren’t supposed to be there. If there are objects that are out of place they will often put them back into order. They use tools and supplies to make sure that areas are clean and useable for the future. Similar to a janitor, a resource analyst intern looks back at past files and make sure everything is order. They make sure that data has been sorted correctly and when titles need to be updated and cleaned they do that. They also reconfigure the data files to various types if needed. When there are incorrect codes used, they look up the new codes and clean the file by inserting the right codes.