• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2025

• Brown University, Astrophysics, ‘27

• Host Institution: SES Defence

• Mentor: TBD

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Matilda Damon is a sophomore at Brown University, majoring in Astrophysics. Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, her passion for space exploration began at a young age while searching for Mars among a sea of stars. This curiosity has grown through hands-on experience in research, engineering, and simulations.

Matilda has worked on attitude control for the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III as a NASA intern and served as an engineer and researcher during the HI-SEAS analog mission, Keala’akeku’uku’u. Driven by a desire to push the boundaries of human understanding, she has delivered a TEDx talk on space science communication, completed astronautics courses at the Institute of Astronautical Sciences, and earned both her pilot and scuba licenses.

At Brown, Matilda serves as a teaching assistant in astrophysics, is a full-time varsity rower, and actively participates in several space and engineering-focused organizations. She is also a member of the Brown Cosmology Research Group.

In her free time, Matilda enjoys operatic singing, learning new languages, and meeting new people.