What is your next adventure?

After graduation, I’ll begin working at Aerospace Corporation in Colorado Springs as an analyst with their Space Enterprise Design and Optimization Department. I’ll be working on providing information to support decision making for satellite constellation design for government clients.

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

For me it's that the next step really does feel like a new adventure. I know that a lot of people say that, but I'm looking at, moving to a new place I haven't been before, actually joining the workforce instead of being a student, which I’ve been for the past eight years. So, I’m just looking forward to really getting to do something new, while also getting to use my academic background.

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

As an undergrad, I interned at NASA Goddard four times, so that was really exciting. I worked with the Satellite Servicing Projects Division on testing tools for the astronauts to use on the International Space Station, which involved attending sessions at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. I also did some work on designing test hardware to be used in environmental testing for some of the upcoming space telescopes.

My research at Georgia Tech was actually very closely related to the work I’m expecting to do at my new role. The focus of my thesis was on decision support for cislunar mission planning. I also did sponsored research with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) on modeling and analysis for a future lunar base.

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

I came out of undergrad knowing that I wanted to focus on space, but I was coming from a more general mechanical engineering background from my previous university.

So, Georgia Tech was really the opportunity for me to become more specialized in aerospace and develop that skillset that I needed in order to fully transition. Being in the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL) has been incredibly formative in terms of my academic experience and given me exposure to all of these different networking opportunities and resources, it’s had a huge impact on my academics.

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

Hold onto - or maintain - that passion for learning. I think that being interested in grad school indicates wanting to continue to learn and sometimes with everything that’s going on you can get caught up in work and you can get separated from this real drive to learn. I think that whenever I tapped into those periods of time where I really wanted to learn something new, I’ve seen really good return. And I also think that type of posture has been beneficial throughout my academic and career trajectory.