• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2024

• University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus, Mechanical Engineering, ‘26

• Host Institution: Venturi Astrolab

• Mentor: Danielle Wood

• Brookie Mentor: Nina Arcot

Amanda Z. Gutiérrez Nieves is a fourth year student at University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez Campus studying mechanical engineering with a minor in aerospace. They were born and raised in Puerto Rico. They fell in love with aerospace because of comic books and superhero movies, but never imagined they’d find themself so passionate over the work they’re doing. Amanda had the opportunity of being an inaugural year fellow for the Patti Grace Smith where they intervened at ABL Space Systems for the summer. This experience opened many doors for them in the form of community and professional and personal growth. Since this experience they’ve done an internship and a coop at Pratt and Whitney Aguadilla as well as joining and growing within a rocketry engineering team at their university where they are now team captain. Amanda hopes to do a masters in material science and eventually a phd. Their goal for their career is to work in aerospace research and development. For fun they love to read, pain and build lego projects.