Marisa Petrusky

Marisa Petrusky

PhD Candidate and NSF GRFP Fellow, Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences

Adventures with Emmy Playtest

less than 1 minute read

Published:

At the 2026 Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities, I had the amazing opportunity to “Game Master” for an Adventures with Emmy playtest: an NSF-funded tabletop roleplaying game for STEM education. Tabletop roleplaying games are a great way to practice improvisation skills. Combined with the STEM themes, Adventures with Emmy is perfect for practicing science communication or even just getting comfortable casually conversing in the language of STEM. If you’d like to try Adventures with Emmy for yourself, you can check out the game and guides here.

You May Also Enjoy

Paper Published: Discrete-Velocity Simulation of a One-Dimensional Hypersonic Stagnation Streamline.

less than 1 minute read

Published:

Our paper, titled “Discrete-Velocity Simulation of a One-Dimensional Hypersonic Stagnation Streamline”, has just been published with the Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer. We apply the theoretical framework of a DSMC stagnation streamline model to develop a novel version for discrete-velocity solvers. Results are benchmarked with DSMC for a variety of hypersonic flow cases. A study of velocity distribution functions around the shock is also performed, revealing features unique to a hypersonic shock in the presence of a reflecting boundary. You can check out our work here.

National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting & Symposium: Quantum & Space, the Next Frontier

less than 1 minute read

Published:

I enjoyed attending the National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting & Symposium on Quantum & Space, the Next Frontier. It was fascinating to learn how quantum technology development can enable space exploration goals, especially for satellite Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and guidance systems. On the aerospace side, we can prioritize enabling quantum experiments in space and developing robust vehicles that can stably house quantum equipment!

2026 Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities

less than 1 minute read

Published:

I was honored to be a Graduate Leader at the 2026 Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Denver Colorado, hosted by the American Physical Society! I volunteered to moderate several sessions and gave a joint seminar with peers on Applying to Summer Research Internships. Having attended this conference as an undergraduate myself, it is wonderful to give back and help others find their paths in STEM!

Paper Published: Evaluation of the Ambipolar Diffusion Approximation Using an Eulerian Boltzmann-Poisson-BGK Solver

less than 1 minute read

Published:

The conference proceedings from the 33rd International Symposium of Rarefied Gas Dynamics (2024) have just been published! The entire book is open access, which you can check out here. Our paper is titled, “Evaluation of the Ambipolar Diffusion Approximation Using an Eulerian Boltzmann-Poisson-BGK Solver.” We conduct a thorough investigation of one of the most ubiquitous plasma modeling assumptions in rarefied gas dynamics and propose an improved set of criteria for evaluating its validity. You can check out our paper here.