The highly prestigious national award, the 2024 Brooke Owens Fellowship Award has been presented to Rishita Das. She is a senior at Arizona State University's Barrett Honors College. The esteemed award is provided to female undergraduates and members of the underrepresented genders who aspire to work in the Aerospace and Space Exploration industries. Rishita is among the 47 fellows who were chosen from a competitive pool of over 450 applicants from both domestic and international institutions and universities.
Rishita will start her 12-week long internship with the Airbus U.S. Space & Defense in Arlington, Virginia, as a part of the Brooke Owens Fellowship award. She will work on satellites as a part of her responsibilities as a systems engineer. Rishita has been eagerly awaiting this chance to apply for the fellowship from the time she entered college and she finally succeeded. During the significant internship period, she will gain practical knowledge and skill advancement along with a high-level internship placement. In addition to this, she will get a substantial boost to her professional growth overall.
Each fellow in the program has been allocated with two executive-level mentors, one from the internship placement and one from the aerospace sector. The Brooke Owens Summit, held in Washington, D.C., is the major highlight of this fellowship where all the participants selected gather. They will work on group projects, have one-on-one mentoring sessions, and meet with powerful people including CEOs, congresswomen, entrepreneurs, astronauts, and company founders at the summit.
Rishita is a young scientist with a strong undergraduate research background, she has developed an AI network for breast cancer models and completed a research internship at Hamburg University of Technology. She is currently a NASA Space Grant Intern who is studying Mars' mantle temperature and designing a medical implant valve model for hydrocephalus treatment. She also serves as the President of Women in STEM and a member of the Model United Debate Team at ASU. Rishita awaits to gain real-world technical expertise and prepare for graduate school and industry positions, demonstrating the program's mission to promote inclusion and diversity in the male-dominated aerospace industry.
