• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• The University of Texas at Dallas, International Political Economy, ‘23

• Host Institution: BryceTech

• Mentor: Rich Leshner

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Cari Reinert is a senior at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) studying International Political Economy. Ever since she was a child, Cari has been enraptured by the tales science fiction authors tell about outer space and the problems of humanity’s future. Yet, her aspiration to become a space policy professional stems not from fiction, but from the desire to help her generation fight the greatest challenges of their lifetime: climate change and global environmental degradation.

Cari was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana and raised in a variety of places across the country, including Illinois, Wyoming, and Texas. Her many childhood moves inspired a love for unconventional community and traveling. As a McDermott Scholar at UTD, she pursued community by planning unique social events (including murder mysteries) for her scholarship program, leading the Model United Nations club, and helping her peers found their local chapter of the United Nations Association. Cari also connected with the broader DFW community by volunteering at an innovative hydroponics farm in South Dallas known as Restorative Farms, serving as an English teacher at the Richardson Adult Literacy Center, and occasionally helping out at her mother's project-based learning school, Veritas Academy.

Knowing that space policy was a niche field, Cari sought out numerous opportunities outside of Dallas to get involved. Virtually, she has interned at the NASA Headquarters Science & Technology Partnership Forum and the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Aerospace Security Project. Cari also remotely coordinated the March Storm advocacy event for the Alliance for Space Development in 2022 and 2023. As a junior, Cari participated in the Bill Archer Fellowship, a University of Texas System opportunity to study and work in Washington, D.C. While living in D.C., she completed internships with the Aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy and with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Cari has been fortunate enough to work on a variety of projects, including mapping the international development of national space programs, advocating for policies promoting the economic sustainability of the space industry, forecasting future challenges for cislunar development, and tracking applications of satellite data to global environmental problems like overfishing. She was thrilled to conduct further research on the latter throughout a month-long study abroad experience in Costa Rica.

In her free time, Cari loves spending time with her friends and exploring coffee shops & nature preserves in her local community and beyond. She always has a new crafty fixation, but her all-time favorites include reading, splatter-painting, and candle-making. Cari will be returning to the D.C. area this summer to intern with BryceTech in Alexandria, Virginia as a Brooke Owens Fellow.