• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2018

• The Ohio State University, Science Communication and Accessibility, '18

• Host Institution: The Aerospace Corporation

• Mentor: Anousheh Ansari

Anna Voelker is the Executive Director of the Aspen Science Center. They are also the founder and Executive Director of the SciAccess Initiative, an international organization dedicated to advancing disability inclusion in STEM. Through SciAccess, they lead numerous community engagement initiatives, including an annual conference launched by their receipt of the 2018 Ohio State University (OSU) President’s Prize, the highest honor that the University bestows upon students committed to social change. Anna graduated from OSU in 2018 with a self-designed major in Science Communication and Accessibility and a minor in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Anna specializes in accessible space science outreach for diverse learners and has worked extensively with blind and low vision students using 3D printing, data sonification, and other multi-sensory educational approaches. Prior to joining the Aspen Science Center, Anna worked as the Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the OSU Department of Astronomy and the OSU Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics.

As a 2018 Brooke Owens Fellow, Anna worked in communications at the Aerospace Corporation. Prior to this, Anna worked for NASA Goddard as a certified space weather forecaster for two years. They have also worked in astronomy outreach at NASA Kennedy, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the International Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy for Development, and the Allegheny Observatory.