• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2021

• Brown University, Geochemistry, ‘23

• Host Institution: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

• Mentor: Thomas Zurbuchen

• Brookie Mentor: Lindsey Wiser

Annabelle Gao is a second-year at Brown University concentrating in geochemistry. Ever since she was young, Annabelle has been interested in space. Her dad worked at NASA and always brought home bookmarks with the most amazing images on them, which fueled her curiosity even more.

In school, Annabelle is mainly involved in STEM outreach and teaching. She is a coordinator and mentor for a student organization called BSP (Brown Science Prep) that designs/writes and teaches socially conscious science lessons to high schoolers in the Providence area. She is also involved with the Swearer Center, which is the community outreach hub at Brown. Namely, Annabelle visits local high schools, drops into designated math and science classes, and helps out in any way she can. This last semester Annabelle has also been co-leader of the geology Department Undergraduate Group or DUG. They came up with pandemic-friendly events over the course of the semester to encourage students in the geology department to get to know one another. Finally, starting in her freshman spring, she has been involved in planetary research with a professor on campus. The project was related to finding fresh impacts on Mars, using machine learning to compile a more robust database of characterized craters, and what these craters can tell us about surface and subsurface properties on Mars. Outside of school and research, she really enjoys dancing, running, and spending time with family and friends.

Annabelle is excited to be interning at the Smithsonian this summer, especially since she is considering research as a career! Here, she is looking forward to learning a lot about the research process and the tools needed to develop a successful project.