What is your next adventure?

I will be returning to the BS/MS program in the fall. The Georgia Tech undergraduate curriculum is really broad and covers a lot of different sectors of aerospace. I wanted to learn more in-depth about structures and propulsion, and I've only had one class on each. So, being able to take a couple more classes will help me better prepare for my career. This summer, I will be interning at Rocket Lab again on the propulsion team. Currently, I work in the Space System Design Lab (SSDL), but I will be switching over to the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) for graduate school.

What about your next adventure are you most looking forward to?

Moving from being an undergraduate to a grad student will definitely be a very big change in my life. As a graduate student, I will experience school in a different way that I’m looking forward to. I will also be a Graduate Research Assistant in ASDL and will be spending a lot of time in the lab. 

Did you have any previous co-op, internship, or research experience in this area?

The summer of 2023, I worked at Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford, Connecticut on the engine design and integration team. My group was the high-cycle fatigue group, and that was a structure-oriented role. I still keep in touch with my manager today. In the spring of 2024, I did an internship at NASA Johnson Space Center working in systems engineering, and that was my first systems engineering experience. There were things that I liked and didn't like about systems engineering. I liked the NASA Johnson Space Center a lot. It was a good experience to understand that maybe systems engineering wasn't totally the right path for me. Even though I did enjoy it, I wanted to do something a little more technical, like my first internship. Then I did an internship at Rocket Lab as a propulsion intern, and that experience came from my Brooke Owens Fellowship. I was on the design team, and I liked it and will be returning this summer.

How did your educational experience at Georgia Tech help you to achieve your goals?

My research and lab work helped me the most. I got involved in research pretty early on at the end of my freshman year. I worked in the lab with Dr. Lightsey in SSDL. There was a call for students who wanted to do lab research sent out to the AE Listserv. I responded to the e-mail and ended up joining SSDL and I’ve been in that lab ever since. It’s been three years now, and I've been able to lead a couple of projects. It's definitely been a big part of my college experience. I've been on three different hands-on projects. The projects have allowed me to design things. Being in the lab, getting to work with flight hardware, and knowing that the stuff you're touching is going to space is super exciting. Suiting up fully for the clean room, I felt like a mad scientist with the hair net on and everything. Also, in that lab, there is a lot of autonomy because all of the projects that I worked on were completely student-led. So, I've been able to take on a big role, especially this past semester, which has been the integration of the current satellite project. It's been really busy this semester because everyone needs to be on deck to fully build our satellite. I've met a lot of really good people in that lab as well.

Working in student organizations has also been important. I was a part of the Yellow Jacket Space Program (YJSP), the Student Rocketry Club, and it was really hands-on. I was able to help build an engine test stand for the club. It was a good learning experience because a lot of the older members in that club have done a ton of internships. They taught me a lot of information I didn’t learn in the classroom because in the classroom, it's a lot of theory and equations. In the real world, you need to know how to apply the theory. 
 

What advice would you give to an underclassman who would like to follow the same path?

Get involved really early on, whether it's research or a club. Anything, not just an academic club, just a club where you will continually meet people. But in an academic sense, definitely join an academic club and stick with it. When you do research, you get to do physical stuff that you don't get to do in class, like building and using hardware in the machine shop. Make friends in your classes. Some of my closest friends are people that I met in my freshman and sophomore year in my aerospace classes. The challenging aerospace curriculum has bonded us through good times and some not-so-good times. So, have a good group of friends that you can rely on to take classes with.