What is your next adventure?
I'll be joining the University of Colorado Boulder in their Ph.D. program for Aerospace Engineering Sciences. It was my top choice, and I've been waiting forever to hear back. I'll be working as a graduate research assistant with Professor Daniel J. Scheeres in the Celestial and Spaceflight and Mechanics Lab. I will concentrate on planning theoretical concepts on asteroids, specifically rubble pile asteroids, and modeling the gravitational fields of asteroids that aren't one rock but maybe many rocks or rubble. If you're going to do missions to these asteroids, you have to model the gravity around the asteroids and you can't assume it's solid. There are different parts of it, so the gravity is going to be different. 

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to learning and working with the professors. Their work is top-notch, and I’ll gain a lot of experience in the field. I’m also looking forward to the new location in Boulder, Colorado. I’m really into hiking and outdoor activities like skiing and winter sports. Besides the exciting work, the outside activities will be really fun for me.

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?
After my freshman year in the summer of 2021, I interned at Analytical Graphics Inc. in Exton, Pennsylvania. The next summer, I worked at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, and that actually piqued my interest in Colorado. Then I came back to Ball Aerospace in fall 2023. In the spring of 2023, I interned at Blue Origin in Kent, Washington. It was transformative because I worked with the autonomy team for New Glenn, which is their biggest rocket.  It was this internship that made me realize that I didn't want to enter industry after graduating and that I wanted to pursue a doctorate. I've been studying control autonomy and applying that to spacecraft and missions. I hope that in my Ph.D., I can focus on that in terms of missions to asteroids.

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?
My plan is to be a professor and my experience at Georgia Tech really played a significant role in that goal. One thing I'd like to highlight is the Yang Aero Maker Space. I appreciate that I've been able to work there since my second year and have had opportunities to mentor and teach other students in simple introductory projects and more complex ones as well and that was great. 

Georgia Tech allows undergraduates to be official Teaching Assistants (TAs) for classes, which is amazing because I was able to TA for three semesters: twice for Multivariable Calculus and once for Differential Equations. I know that this helped shape my desire to earn a Ph.D. and teach.

I also worked with Professor Glenn Lightsey, in the Space Systems Design Lab in the mission operations center. They were just starting to prepare for missions like lunar flashlight. It was very exciting.

My opportunity to be involved in leadership and help other students has meant a lot to me as well. Through the GT American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) student branch, which I’m leading this year, we've been able to do some really amazing things like events that have increased interest in our organization and also exposed students to various industry and organization leaders. We were able to bring students to the conference this year in Florida. We usually send about eight people, but this year, we launched a major initiative to publicize it and debunk any misinformation, and we sent 56 people. We were a major portion of the conference for the whole Southeast of the United States. We won six out of the 15 awards, and I'm really proud of that. We're trying to make a sustainable precedent for next year by removing financial or academic obstacles. We sent so many first years. We strive to ensure everyone knows that it's available to them. It's not just for graduate students or seniors. So I think all of those experiences have led me to my next chapter.

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?
When entering Georgia Tech, be open, even if you have a passion. Be open to alternatives and things you don't know. There are probably lots of things that you don't know, and you should explore.

Don't be afraid to try something different. Go above and beyond if you want to do research. It may not be what you expect, but it could open a doorway. There are a lot of research opportunities for first years, and the best way to get those is reaching out to professors and friends. Reach out to professors you may be intimidated to talk to because they would love to talk to you, and they are nice and outgoing. It will never hurt you to reach out to people.

Join GT AIAA.