Florida Poly junior Payton Barnwell is about to expand her career wings into an out-of-this-world internship, as a winner of the prestigious 2018 Brooke Owens Fellowship.
The program awards internships and senior mentorships to exceptional undergraduate women seeking careers in aviation or space exploration. A total of 41 young leaders from major research universities, Ivy League schools, historically black colleges and universities, and major international universities were announced as recipients after completing a rigorous and highly competitive application and interview process.
“Being chosen as a fellow for such an inspiring namesake program is a pretty incredible feeling. As I learn more about my Brookie sisters, the similarities between us become more apparent. We are all incredibly passionate about the industry and inspiring others to join in on the fun,” expressed Barnwell, from Tampa, Florida.
Each Fellow has been placed into a paid summer internship at one of the nation’s leading aviation or space companies.
Barnwell will be spending her summer working for Generation Orbit, an aviation company based in Atlanta, Georgia, that builds launch systems designed to lower costs, improve responsiveness, and increase overall flexibility of space missions.
“The Brooke Owens Fellowship provides an out-of-this-world internship position, but the real prize is the network of industry leaders that each of us fellows is invited to connect with,” said the Mechanical Engineering major, who also won a $12,000 grant from the NASA Space Consortium last year.
In addition to their paid summer work experience, each Fellow was paired with a senior aerospace professional to serve as her mentor. The pool of mentors includes the most recent NASA Administrator and the two most recent Deputy Administrators, NASA’s former Chief Scientist, several CEOs as well as commercial, international and U.S. Government astronauts.
The Brooke Owens Fellowship Program was founded in 2016 to honor the memory of space industry pioneer and pilot D. Brooke Owens, who passed away in June 2016 at the age of 35, after a hard-fought battle with cancer.
“This program was founded to provide early career experience and mentorship to collegiate women interested in aviation and space,” said co-founder Lori Garver, former Deputy Administrator of NASA and now General Manager at the Air Line Pilots Association.
“The overwhelmingly positive response from our 30 host organizations, mentors, alumni and volunteers demonstrates our collective recognition of the value these exceptional women can offer our industry,” added Garver.