• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• California Institute of Technology, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ‘25

• Host Institution: Amazon Prime Air

• Mentor: Tamaira Ross

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Izzy Ragheb is a sophomore at Caltech pursuing a major in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Aerospace Engineering.

Ever since she was a young girl, Izzy has had an insatiable thirst to create. This innate creativity pushed her to pursue a variety of interests, from painting to architecture to writing poetry. It wasn’t until one fateful night in middle school, after watching an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos with her dad, that Izzy became enthralled with space. At first, Izzy’s fascination with space sparked an interest in astrophysics, leading Izzy to take her first physics class in high school. With the help of her AP Physics 1 teacher Mr. Richards, a retired Air Force aerospace engineer, Izzy realized that aerospace engineering was the perfect field for her to apply her intrinsic creativity, her passion for space, and her love of physics, math, and problem-solving. Since then, Izzy has decided to pursue a career in propulsion engineering after conducting a research project her senior year of high school investigating how differences between chemical, electrical, and nuclear rocket propulsion systems affect the overall efficiency of rockets in regards to interplanetary space exploration. Izzy has taken her innate desire to create, her passion for space, her love of STEM, and her never ending curiosity across the country to Caltech where she currently studies and conducts research in the Aerospace Robotics and Controls Lab.

During the summer of 2022, Izzy dove into the fields of robotics, machine learning, and orbital mechanics, determined to make an impact as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF) in Caltech’s Aerospace Robotics and Controls Lab. Mentored by PhD student Kai Matsuka and Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, Izzy developed a vision-based navigation technique which allows for the 3D position and trajectory of an uncooperative target spacecraft in orbit to be estimated. Specifically, she trained a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based object detection algorithm to be optimized for real-time spacecraft detection and tracking. In addition to her work in machine learning, she engineered a ROS2-YOLOv5 pipeline which implements her trained CNN along with an Extended Kalman Filter to estimate the 3D position and trajectory of an unknown target spacecraft. The success of Izzy’s summer research resulted in her being selected as an Aerospace Corporation SURF Fellow and being a co-author of the paper “High-Fidelity, Closed-Loop Simulation of Spacecraft Vision-Based Relative Navigation in ROS2” which will be presented at the 33rd AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting.

Outside of academics and research, Izzy is involved in various support systems Caltech offers for its students. One of these support systems is Caltech’s Hixon Writing Center where Izzy works as a peer writing tutor. As a peer writing tutor, Izzy offers support to students struggling with writing assignments while sharing her passion for the craft of writing and the importance of scientific communication with her peers. In addition to working as a peer writing tutor, Izzy is also a peer advocate for her house. As a peer advocate, Izzy works to support her housemates through the various challenges they face throughout the term. Whether it’s stress over problem sets, a mental health struggle, or just a bad day, Izzy loves that as a peer advocate, she is able to help guide her housemates to the resources they need to thrive. When she’s not working as a peer writing tutor or peer advocate, Izzy enjoys hiking, painting portraits, weight training, reading classical literature, and baking.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Izzy is thrilled to be working as a hardware development intern this summer at Amazon Prime Air.