What is your next adventure?

I will be attending Texas A&M this fall to pursue a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. This summer, I will be at NASA Goddard as an optical navigation intern.

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

Returning to my alma mater, I will be getting first dibs working out of Texas A&M’s new Space Institute. Opening adjacent to NASA Johnson Space Center, it will feature huge artificial Lunar and Martian landscapes. I am excited to research robotic navigation methods alongside Draper and NASA engineers.

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

As a graduate student here, I have been researching under Professor John Christian’s Space Exploration Analysis Laboratory (SEAL). Funded through the Draper Scholars program, my work involves optimally calibrating spacecraft cameras using images of stars. This ultimately enables optical navigation techniques such as terrain relative navigation.

I have also interned at Draper as a navigation engineer, MIT Lincoln Lab as a systems engineer, CACI as a digital signal processing engineer, and Los Alamos National Labs as a materials science engineer. These experiences have allowed me to truly appreciate the nuances behind real-world systems and the diversity of aerospace applications.

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

Spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control is a highly specialized field. There are only a handful of programs in the country where you can really study this in depth. As part of the greater Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL), it has been a privilege to be in such a vibrant academic community. Every day, I get to work alongside ambitious lab mates and attend lectures/seminars from renowned professors. As I prepare to graduate, I feel a significantly more confident engineer capable of driving my own research.

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

I would strongly encourage undergraduates to be open-minded, exploring clubs and research early on. I encounter plenty of students who try to rush through their degree, but if you’re at Georgia Tech and not engaged in anything beyond class, you’re truly leaving a lot on the table.

It is overlooked, but engineering is a very social discipline. If you aren’t receiving the involvement or mentorship you need, don’t be afraid to branch out and explore new opportunities. That may not always come from the most prestigious or established companies and clubs.

Above all, be honest and passionate about what you’re doing. Engineering is difficult and demands a stubborn tenacity. If you burn out or let the rigor overwhelm you, you lose sight of everything that makes aerospace engineering so awesome.