More than 250 students—ranging from grade schoolers to graduate students—gathered both in-person and online at Chicago’s 1871 on Oct. 4–5, 2025, for the city’s chapter of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, the world’s largest hackathon. The event was supported by official partners Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), 1871, and Code Your Dreams. Participants were challenged to use open data from NASA and its Space Agency Partners to tackle real-world problems on Earth and in space.
As a special pre-event honor, CIERA Associate Director Tarraneh Eftekhari and 1871 CEO Betsy Zeigler joined event sponsors Microsoft, Optiver, Cboe Global Markets and Elastic to ring the Cboe opening bell on the Friday before the hackathon. CIERA Board of Visitors (BoV) member Scott Knudsen, Principal at Arkitekt Advisors, also attended the bell ringing after which a networking event took place.
CIERA’s involvement in the Chicago Space Apps Challenge began in 2023, through BoV member Don Crowley, an index options trader at Susquehanna International Group with a background in finance and data science. Crowley, who first participated in the event in 2017, applied to lead the Chicago chapter in 2023 and partnered with co-lead Margaret Creagh, an Analytics Developer III at Baylor Scott & White Health (Northwestern MS in Data Science, 2018) to expand its reach.
“I did some research into who in the Chicagoland area would make sense to collaborate with. CIERA jumped off the
page as the number one choice,” Crowley said. “Three years later, NASA Space Apps Chicago is the most popular Space Apps event out of 65 in the US by a wide margin.”
Sparking innovation
Over the weekend, student teams from Northwestern, DePaul, UIUC, UIC, UChicago, and area middle and high schools developed data-driven solutions to NASA-designed challenges. CIERA graduate students Alice Cai, Dany Atallah, Miguel Angel S Martinez, and Gideon McFarland provided scientific mentorship throughout the event.
“I had participated last year and discovered that the students were joyfully curious about the astrophysical sciences
and the coding required to investigate astrophysical processes—a passion I share,” said Atallah, a former CIERA Board of Visitors Fellow. “This year, I volunteered hoping to find students with a similar fascination with computational astrophysics, and I was not disappointed. Once again, I shared the basics of my research techniques, tools, and the gravitational astrodynamics I personally obsess over with young numericists. My hope is that whatever small thing they may have learned from me may inspire and push them towards better professional opportunities.”
Thinking Globally
The NASA Space Apps Challenge spans 500+ locations in 160 countries. This year, the Chicago chapter collaborated with organizers in Kyiv, Ukraine.
“We collaborated with them on several initiatives during the cycle. They somehow kept their event going this year,
despite having to head down to the bomb shelter midway through,” Crowley said.
Mentor Nathalie Jones, who worked virtually with the Kyiv team, described the experience as transformative.
“At first, it was intimidating to see everyone typing in Russian and to wrap my head around the time difference, but my worries went away once I was able to talk with individual team members over Discord,” said Jones, a CIERA Board of Visitors Graduate Fellow. “I really admire the creativity and tenacity of the participants in Kyiv, despite the really big challenges Ukraine is dealing with. I enjoyed being able to give Space Apps teams insight into what tools researchers would find useful versus the needs and interests of members of the public.”
On Saturday evening, CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher O’Connor delivered the CIERA lecture, introducing
participants to the fascinating world of exoplanets. His talk connected seamlessly with one of this year’s challenges, which involved using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope mission to create educational materials for students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
“One student I spoke with was looking for expert feedback on her team’s project — designing a humanoid robot to explore the surface of Mars,” said O’Connor. “That’s not my area of expertise, but I was able to connect her with a colleague at Cornell University, where I completed my doctoral research, who specializes in robotic exploration of the Solar System. This is a great example of how events like the NASA Space Apps Challenge create unexpected connections that can spark innovative collaborations.”
The next day, participants submitted their final projects to a panel of judges, including CIERA postdoctoral researchers Fulya Kıroğlu and Tri Nguyen.
This year’s event also featured partnerships with student groups such as Emerging Coders (Northwestern), Women in Computer Science (WashU), and Girls Who Code (NEIU).
“It was amazing to be able to collaborate with and support this super impressive group of people from multiple
universities. We were blown away by the projects they created at NASA Space Apps Chicago,” said Crowley.
Thanks to all the CIERA members and partners who helped make this year’s event one of the most memorable hackathons yet, including Margaret Creagh, Pallavi Aggarwal, Robert Grum, Alex Post, Lisset C. Rico, Raven Smith, and Aruzhan Zhengis and many others!
Photo credits: Derin Taser, Francisco Narvaez and Lisset Rico.
by Lisa La Vallee