• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2022

• Pomona College, Physics and Dance, ‘22

• Host Institution: HawkEye 360

• Executive Mentor: Dan Dumbacher

• Brookie Mentor: Gabi Beach

Christina Dong is a senior at Pomona College double majoring in Physics and Dance. She knew that she wanted to join the aerospace industry after taking an Applied Physics course the fall of her junior year. While learning about cool space tech like Hall Effect Thrusters and CubeSats, she was most intrigued by how the same technology that allows us to explore literal space can also benefit life on Earth.

During the summer of 2021, she researched bipedal robot robustness at Caltech’s Aerospace and Robotics Control Lab as a WAVE Fellow. Working with PhD student Sorina Lupu and Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, she worked on a novel method of teaching bipedal robots how to navigate challenging obstacles based on human locomotion patterns. The robot has the potential to perform autonomous exploration on other planets, such as Mars. She specifically helped conduct an intense literature review on bipedal robots and machine learning methods for robots learning how to locomote. She also assisted in creating a human gait costume to collect human locomotion data by writing a Quaternion-Based Extended Kalman Filter. She plans on continuing this research for her senior thesis in Physics. In the summer of 2020, she investigated computational imaging systems at Harvey Mudd through an NSF REU with Dr. Joshua Brake.

Christina is also super passionate about scientific communication and DEI. At Pomona, she co-ran a for-credit class called “Peer Mentoring in STEM” that focused on best STEM pedagogy practices. During her NSF REU experience, she started conversations during journal club about imposter syndrome, stereotype threat, microaggressions, and how they affect underrepresented students in STEM. She has even helped a professor at Pomona create a new introductory physics course aimed at increasing underrepresented students in physics by planning lessons around identity formation, growth mindset, notable scientists of color, careers in physics, and more.

Outside of academics, she loves to dance and choreograph dances inspired by physics, read, and play with her dog, Missha (named after Hermitian operators in Quantum Mechanics).

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, she will be interning with HawkEye 360 in Herndon, VA.