• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2024

• California Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, ‘25

• Host Institution: Iridium

• Mentor: Yajaira Sierra-Sastre

• Brookie Mentor: Alina Santander

Kimberly Miranda is a junior at Caltech majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Aerospace Engineering.

As a first-generation student and daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, Kimberly grew up without exposure to STEM. However, with the guidance of dedicated elementary and middle school teachers, she discovered her passion for engineering and space exploration. From occasionally joining a 5th-grade class to learn about space as a 3rd-grader to watching documentaries on the Apollo program and the Challenger Shuttle, she knew early on she wanted to embark on a journey into the aerospace industry.

The turning point came in middle school when Kimberly attended Tech Trek, a summer program designed to make STEM accessible to girls in middle school. This transformative experience introduced her to the fascinating realms of engineering and robotics. Inspired by the program, she set her sights on a career in engineering. A few years later, as a sophomore in high school, Kimberly secured an internship at Stanford University where she had the opportunity to work in Professor Catherine Gorle’s Wind Engineering Lab. From then on, she decided to pursue an education at Caltech to develop robotic systems for space and lunar exploration.

As a Caltech student, Kimberly continued on her journey by joining the Caltech Rover Autonomy, Technology, Exploration (CRATER) team. As a member of the mechanical subteam, she collaborated with a group of undergraduate students to design and build ERNIE, a rover engineered for extreme terrain traversal, autonomous navigation, and in-situ sample collection and analysis. She is currently involved with the LATTICE (Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal in-service-of Cable Exploration) project, specifically to design a multi-robot system for deploying the cable and cable-riding robot necessary to operate the LATTICE system in a lunar crater.

Outside of engineering, Kimberly is passionate about STEM outreach, particularly for students in underserved communities. Serving as an Admissions Ambassador for the Caltech Admissions office, she contributed to the successful Women-in-STEM program, and through her work as an Ambassador, hopes to inspire other first-generation students and young girls exploring their potential in STEM. Recently, she furthered her commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity in STEM by becoming involved with the AAUW, the same organization that helped inspire her as a young girl through programs like Tech Trek.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Kimberly is excited to be working as a Space Operations Engineering intern at Iridium in Leesburg, VA.