• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2022

• Duke University, Mechanical Engineering, ‘23

• Host Institution: Stratolaunch

• Executive Mentor: Kate Tice

• Brookie Mentor: Rowan Palmer

Julianne (Annie) Tighe is a junior at Duke University majoring in Mechanical Engineering with an Aerospace certificate. She was first exposed to engineering through her elementary school’s FIRST LEGO League team which she was a part of for three years. Her eyes were opened to the epic and innovative projects in the aerospace industry through seeing the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope at Northrop Grumman and witnessing the arrival of the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center. During high school, Annie joined a Girl Scout FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team and went to the world championship as the build captain her senior year. She is grateful to have been a part of an all-girls team and witness the power of an all-female STEM environment.

At Duke, Annie is a writing consultant for first-year engineering students. She loves the opportunity to build confidence in aspiring engineers and provide encouragement to stick with the field. She has also worked in Duke’s Humans and Autonomy Lab on traffic simulations for autonomous vehicles. During her summers, Annie has interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. For her first summer, she worked as a robotics intern, helping design a mock-up of the Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, to be used for testing future sample-retrieval concepts. In her second summer, she worked in the additive manufacturing section on simulation software for metal 3D printing, analyzing post-processing flaws on 3D printed titanium parts, and designing a testbed support structure.

Alongside engineering, Annie has nurtured a passion for musical theater and singing. She was a part of her high school’s women’s vocal ensemble and performed in five community theatre productions. At Duke, she is a member of the all-female a cappella group Lady Blue. She also enjoys hiking, camping, travel, and playing the ukulele.

Annie is thrilled to be interning at Stratolaunch in Mojave, CA as a Brooke Owens Fellow!