• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• Yale University, Mechanical Engineering and Astrophysics, ‘25

• Host Institution: Johns Hopkins APL

• Mentor: Jenn Gustetic

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Maria is a sophomore at Yale University pursuing a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Astrophysics. After reading about the end of the Mars rover Opportunity’s mission in 2019, Maria became fascinated with this ground-breaking and awe-inspiring technology and resolved to someday send one of Oppy’s successors into space.

At Yale, Maria fulfills both this dedication to design the next generation of Martian explorers and her curiosity about the cosmos. As the Fluid Supply team lead in Project Liquid, an undergraduate student organization developing a bipropellant liquid rocket engine, she has gained important experience in the design process and engineering principles. Furthermore, she has been involved with research in the Yale Astronomy department since the beginning of her freshman year. In summer 2022, she studied the nearby sun-like star Tau Ceti and is submitting a paper on this research to the AAS Astrophysical Journal after presenting her work at the AAS 241st conference meeting. Outside of her interests in STEM, Maria is also an associate beat reporter for the science and technology desk of the Yale Daily News.

As a Brooke Owens fellow, Maria is excited to join Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in summer 2023 and bridge her passion for both astronomy and engineering by working in their Space Science Instrumentation group!