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Anika Hidayat

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2019

  • University of Washington, Mechanical Engineering, '20

  • Host Institution: Northrop Grumman

  • Mentor: Jenn Gustetic

Anika is a senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a focus in Mechatronics at the University of Washington (UW). Through visits to science museums and observatories, working on robotics projects, and participating in engineering camps, she discovered a passion for engineering and space. Eager to realize her dreams of building rovers and space crafts to explore other planets, she started her undergraduate degree through the UW's Early Entrance Program.

After entering university, she worked in Dr. Dee Boersma’s lab designing and building automatic tread scales used in conservation research on Magellanic penguins. As a sophomore, she joined the Husky Satellite Lab, a group that designs, builds, and tests cube satellites. She served as Structures Lead for the group and is currently the Project Manager of a NanoLab mission the team is doing with Blue Origin. She leads efforts to collaborate with UW researchers and launch a microgravity experiment exploring electroplating nanostructures in space.

Additionally, Anika was awarded a Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, Curkendall Scholarship, Paradise Scholarship, and Washington NASA Space Grant Scholarship. She is currently the president of SPACE, a club under Space Grant focused on industry networking, academic development, and youth outreach. Among other things, the club brings engaging educational programs to schools in under-served and underrepresented communities and promotes a diverse future for STEM fields.

Aside from having a love for engineering, Anika also dedicated time during university to foster her love for the arts. She served as the President of the Early Entrance Drama Society, performed in theatre productions, played violin in the UW Campus Philharmonia, interned at the Henry Art Gallery, and loves to draw and compose music.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Anika interned at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems with the Electronics Packaging group. She created finite element models, performed vibration analyses, and conducted various vibration tests for spacecraft components.

This school year, Anika is working on a senior capstone project, BioArchos, which aims to develop and build a bioreactor-based environmental control and life support system for future space missions and habitats. Upon her graduation in June 2020, she aspires to work in the commercial space industry and advance technology to make research in space more accessible, while continuing her work in STEM education outreach.