Research can take a person to unexpected places. For instance, neither UAH students Jeanné le Roux nor Chris Phillips expected their summer undergraduate research projects to take them to the top of the recent von Braun Symposium undergraduate student poster competition. But they did. An Earth system science (ESS) major, Le Roux won first place while Phillips, double majoring in ESS and physics, finished second in the annual competition. Posters were judged by members of the American Astronautical Society.