Cooperative Education Student Achievement Award Recipient

Michelle Kao, University of Waterloo

Michelle Kao is an April 2026 graduate in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, exploring the intersection of science and engineering. Her most impactful Co-op experience was an eight-month term at the National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre (NRC-HAA), where she contributed directly to the development of CASTOR, a proposed Canadian-led space telescope mission.

Michelle independently developed a mission planning and scheduling software tool to optimize CASTOR’s observing programs. By combining mission-level specifications from industry (e.g., mechanical design, orbital parameters, solar panel layout, downlink requirements, and pointing
constraints) and survey-level requirements from the science team (e.g., areal coverage, photometric depth, and temporal coverage), Michelle created a suite of Python tools to optimally schedule observing programs and calculate CASTOR’s “observing efficiency” on a program-by-program basis. She showed how one survey could be re-optimized to nearly double its observing efficiency. Additionally, her technical contributions influenced key mission design decisions, including spacecraft solar array power feasibility and downlink strategy. Her trade analysis and optimization work translated into six million dollars in mission cost savings.

Beyond her technical achievements, Michelle is committed to leadership and community engagement. She has been a core member of FemPhys throughout her undergraduate degree, a student club supporting underrepresented groups in physics through career development and advocacy programs. She also served as the 2025 Waterloo Local Lead for the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, bringing the world’s largest annual global hackathon to the Waterloo community to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and strengthen ties between academia and industry in the Waterloo region.

Michelle’s passion for space missions and dedication to inclusivity continue to shape her academic and professional journey. Inspired by her work on CASTOR, she now plans to pursue graduate studies in aerospace engineering with a focus on spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control.