• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2022

• University of Hawaii at Manoa, B.S. Mechanical Engineering with Aerospace Focus, ‘24

• Kapi’olani Community College, A.S. Physics, A.S. Pre-Engineering, ‘21

• Host Institution: Lockheed Martin

• Executive Mentor: Jennifer Young

• Brookie Mentor: Madison Harrington

Katlynn Vicuña is a Mechanical Engineering with an Aerospace Focus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She was born outside of Boston Massachusetts. From a young age, she was always fascinated by taking things apart. She spent time doing plumbing and fixing cars with her dad. She started her work ethic at the age of 13 where she would help wash dishes and clean tables where her mom worked. She realized at a young age that she was good at working with her hands

After high school, she did not go directly to college. She opted to travel the country and end up on the west coast. After working in numerous customer service positions she realized that she was not happy. She decided to attend Universal Technical Institute where she excelled and attained a 4.0 in automotive technologies, then was accepted into the Mercedes-Benz program where she gained a specialization. A few states and ten years later in the industry to she realized that she should be doing more. She knew that her hard work and hands-on experience would serve better elsewhere in a career where she could make a difference.

While working at Mercedes-Benz in Honolulu Hawaii she opted to go to Kapi ‘olani Community College part-time while continuing to work full time. Ultimately needing to make the shift to working part-time and going to school full time. Worked part-time at the community college as a science and engineering assistant where she was in charge of maintaining labs, 3D printing, and repairing the broken microbiology equipment. While at the community college she was accepted to participate in NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) at Ames Research Center. This experience solidified that this was the industry she belonged in and wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. Additionally, she was able to participate in NASA L’SPACE Academy Lucy Student Pipeline Accelerator and Competency Enabler where she learned PDR writing and project management. She was lucky to create a research proposal for National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and Hawai’i Space Grant Consortium (HSGC) in regards to the sustainability issues in space. Additionally, part of Bridges to the Baccalaureate Research Training Program (B2B) where she expanded on her research projects. Ending off the semester with an internship acceptance at Akamai Workforce Initiative Internship Program with the Gemini Observatory located in Hilo, HI.

During the second year at Kapi ‘olani Community College, she was asked to be part of a program called Ka ‘ei ‘ei which would allow for students to finish up their associate’s degrees while simultaneously be working towards their bachelor’s. This is where her University of Hawaii at Manoa adventure began. Over the summer prior to starting she reached out to Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) and asked if she could simply tag along for meetings and see if there was anywhere her help could be allocated. This lead to assisting in creating an open-source aerospace textbook with corresponding working CubeSat kit, avionics assistant for satellite HyTi, monitoring passing satellites, and various other educational-related activities for the local community. Immediately wanting to be involved in whatever space-related and hands-on as possible she signed up for Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) to be part of the satellite team. Additional experiences while at the University of Hawaii are as follows. Emer-gen 2021 Hackathon Team building conference for emerging security challenges and bureau of arms control. This is a team-building and networking conference. The Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) is a LunaSat workshop to become part of assisting students from around the world learn, build, and send a LunaSat to the moon to monitor real-time data. Finalizing the experiences so far with ASCEND 2021 Diversity Scholars with AIAA.

Some of the associations she is involved with are as follows. AIAA American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as a student member and conference attendee. Association of Old Crows (AOC) as a student member. ASHRAE American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers as a student member. Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum Assisting in airplane restoration and STEM/STEAM activities. Society of Women Engineers (SWE) a leadership program to professionally develop women in engineering. The Hawaiian Astronomical Society has group stargazing, monthly meetings, and everything Space-related. Girl Scouts of Hawaii registered as a specialist STEM professional presenter. 500 Women Scientists is a grassroots network of women scientists supporting others in achieving their goals.

Aside from all the academic excitement, she enjoys being married to her best friend, snorkeling, hiking, drawing, painting, and spending time shadow (the cat that adopted Katlynn and her husband as her humans at the beginning of the pandemic. She is a lifelong martial artist studying Karate, Kung Fu, Bando, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, and boxing. The only problem she really has is that she wants to sign up for everything. Any time something comes up and it’s interesting and hands-on immediately others are like hey Katlynn will sign up. Then Katlynn signs up for all the things.