• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2021

• Duke University, B.A. Public Policy, Physics Minor, ‘22

• Host Institution: Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Mentor: Aschley Schiller

• Brookie Mentor: Gabi Beach

Hannah Duke is a junior at Duke University currently studying physics. From a young age, Hannah loved watching shows like How the Universe Works and reading as many Neil deGrasse Tyson books as possible. Inspired by space and its unknowns, she decided to pursue physics. In addition to her passion for STEM, Hannah also enjoys reading and writing and is interested in the intersections between the space community and policy.

At Duke, Hannah is currently Vice President of the Society of Physics Students and writes for The Muse, a Duke feminist magazine. In her free time, she loves exploring her creative side. She has been playing piano since she was seven years old and performed as a soloist with the Wake Forest Orchestra in 2019. Along with her classical pieces, her favorite pieces to learn are all types of movie scores from Star Wars to La La Land.

During the summer of 2020, Hannah interned at NASA Headquarters as a program integration intern within the Mars Exploration Program. She wrote white papers, integrated internal studies and working groups with over 25 international space agencies, wrote two published pieces for NASA’s blog page, and prepared discussion topics for the Mars Human Landing Sites Study. Not too keen on taking virtual classes from home, Hannah decided to take a gap semester and stay at NASA as a full-time intern for the fall of 2020.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Hannah is thrilled to continue exploring how policy affects the air and space domains as an intern with the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS in Washington, DC.