Gabrielle Beach
Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2020
Saint Mary’s College, Physics, ‘20
University of Notre Dame, Mechanical Engineering, ‘21
Host Institution: Ball Aerospace
Mentor: Ellen Stoffan
Gabrielle Beach is enrolled in the dual-degree engineering program at Saint Mary’s College and the University of Notre Dame. She believes dual-degree study allows her to think like an engineer and understand scientific fundamentals as a physicist.
Gabi’s path has been an unconventional one. Her first goal was to be a professional ballet dancer. By age 14, she had performed at Lincoln Center in NYC and in Beijing, China. She left her Florida home at 15 to train at The Royal Ballet School. London was full of opportunities: filmmakers chronicling a day in her life for a documentary, performing a solo live-streamed to thousands during the annual World Ballet Day, and the realization of her goal to dance professionally with The Royal Ballet Company and Boston Ballet. This was accomplished while completing high school online in an environment of diverse cultures where she was the only American girl in her year. Six months after graduation, Gabi’s knees rebelled and her mind longed for an academic challenge. She resigned and enrolled in college.
Drawn to science and space since witnessing the last space shuttle launch, Gabrielle researched the education of astronauts and declared her dual majors. The time management, work ethic, and determination required for her past ballet career now sustain Gabi through academic challenges.
In 2018, Gabrielle interned with General Electric Aviation and in 2019, she participated in the Solar Physics Research Experience for Undergraduates at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. At Harvard, she worked with lead engineers on the optical alignment of space-bound instruments. Gabi also helped prepare hardware for testing in the X-ray Cryogenic Facility’s cleanroom with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center's heliophysics sounding rocket team. Gabrielle presented her summer research at the 235th American Astronomical Society Meeting in Honolulu and the 2020 APS Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Gabi enjoys being active on her college campuses. She is a teaching assistant, holds officer positions in service and academic organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers, performs with the Notre Dame Dance Company, and participates in wavefront sensor research at Notre Dame. To help fellow STEM students, Gabrielle tutors and mentors underclassmen and high school seniors, and has shared personal research and internship experiences on panels at Saint Mary’s and CUWiP.
Gabi is grateful for her mentors who have offered direction, advice, and opportunities that have shaped her future. She hopes her journey from a childhood devoted to the arts to a Brooke Owens Fellow focused on engineering future space instruments can be an example to those of nontraditional educational backgrounds that your beginning does not determine your end.
As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Gabi will spend the summer of 2020 working at Ball Aerospace as a Strategic Operations intern in Arlington, VA.