ODU JUNIOR, 17, AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS INTERNSHIP WITH NASA

He started as a freshman at Old Dominion at 13 years of age. Now a dean's list student in modeling, simulation and visualization engineering (MSVE) with a 3.90 grade point average, Spencer Lane has been accepted for a prestigious internship this summer with the NASA Space Academy at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

The 17-year-old will work on a project titled "Probabilistic Assessment of Space Flight Medical Events," spending 10 weeks at NASA Glenn collaborating with engineers.

The NASA Space Academies are intensive educational programs that emphasize group activities, teamwork, leadership and creativity. The curriculum balances direct contact with science and engineering researchers and an awareness of the myriad issues outside of science faced by aerospace professionals. The program is a rigorous, immersive experience that challenges interns to think and work outside their comfort zones.

That Lane is even a student at ODU, let alone a junior with a stellar GPA, is a fantastic story in its own right. He was diagnosed in 2008 with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. The affliction meant that the otherwise healthy, active young man faced a nightmare year of feeding tubes, pills, hospital visits and bed rest. He still takes more than two-dozen pills daily to try to keep his symptoms at bay.

Lane's family decided that he could better handle the rigors of university classes than the long hours of sitting at a desk in high school classrooms. So he went straight from middle school to ODU, and has thrived in the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology.

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