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Dallas Capozza

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2019

  • University of Colorado Boulder, '20

  • Host Institution: Virgin Galactic

  • Mentor: Beth Robinson

Dallas grew up in a small shoreline town in Niantic, Connecticut.  Here she enjoyed plenty of time at the beach while also playing sports through high school.  Her passion for space really took flight when she drove from Connecticut down to Cape Canaveral, Florida to watch the last historic launch of the space shuttle Atlantis.  Her interest in space travel has grown over the years and she knew she wanted to be a part of it.

Dallas moved across the country for school where she started at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where she was enrolled in their two-year Engineering program. While being heavily involved in the school's clubs, she also worked three jobs for CMC. She worked as a Residents Assistant, a School Ambassador, and a Physics/Astronomy Lab Assistant. She graduated with her Associates Degree in May 2018 and transferred to the University of Colorado - Boulder.

During Fall 2018 she spent her semester at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as an intern. Her title was Advanced Exploration Life Support Systems Model-Based Systems Engineering Intern. While she was there, she worked in the Crew and Thermal Systems Division in the Life Support Systems Branch. Her duty was to support the Gateway environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) as well as systems engineering and integration (SE&I) efforts. Working with different departments such as software, robotics, and simulation divisions, she helped develop simulations to support the Fire Detection Suppression System (FDSS). She wrote the code for the FDSS because it needs to be completely autonomous in case a fire happens when Gateway is uncrewed. She then created a physical model to be able to show a real-life simulation of how this system would work.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Dallas worked with Virgin Galactic working on multiple projects. She hopes to one day be a part of space travel, making it easier for anyone to be able to make it to space, as well as making it easier for trained astronauts to make it farther into space!