• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2020

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S. Aerospace Engineering, ‘21

• Host Institution: SpaceX

• Mentor: AJ Piplica

Claire Buffington graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering in June 2021. Her love of space began when she first saw the Milky Way during an astronomy camp in high school. Combined with an interest in engineering, her goal became to work on a project that would go to space.
While at MIT, Claire was the vice president and chief engineer of MIT Rocket Team, a student project team with the goal of flying and recovering a student-built rocket from beyond the Kármán line. As the former recovery lead, she was in charge of manufacturing and testing custom parachutes and a pyrotechnic separation mechanism. Since joining Rocket Team, she has become passionate about parachutes and high-powered rocketry.

Claire has interned at Millennium Space Systems, where she worked on a satellite power model and analyzed battery testing data. She has also worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the NISAR mission as a Systems Engineering Intern.

She was the treasurer for MIT Women in Aerospace Engineering, a student group that organizes professional development and outreach events supporting women in STEM. In her free time, Claire enjoys crochet and embroidery.

As a 2020 Brooke Owens fellow, Claire worked at SpaceX as a Vehicle Engineering Intern on the parachutes team. She helped with designing, testing, and manufacturing planning for both the fairing and Dragon parachutes.

Since graduating from MIT, Claire works as a full-time engineer at Blue Origin in the new graduate rotation program for structures and mechanical systems. Her rotations include New Glenn second stage structures, New Shepard parachutes, and advanced development programs.