• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• Illinois Institute of Technology, M.S. Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, ‘24

• Illinois Institute of Technology, B.S. Aerospace Engineering, ‘24

• Host Institution: Lockheed Martin

• Mentor: Tory Bruno

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Liz Karagiannes is in her fourth out of five years at Illinois Institute of Technology where she is concurrently pursuing a Bachelor's in Aerospace Engineering, a Masters in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and a Minor in Computer Science.

From a young age Liz fell in love with the space industry through reading about the Apollo missions and building clay model spaceships to go along with them! It wasn’t until high school when she joined a Project Lead the Way engineering class, that she discovered her pathway into the industry. In this class she became riveted with the combination of creativity and hard sciences that engineering presented, and it quickly became apparent that this was the path she wanted to follow.

In college, she has chosen extracurriculars that prioritize serving the community and/or are a part of the space industry. Liz currently presides as a Co-President of Women in STEM, a corporate sponsored award-winning student organization. At a school that is only 33% female, Liz helps serve this portion of the population through WiSTEM by providing networking and professional development opportunities in addition to community building events. Liz also focuses on Illinois Tech Rocketry of which she is the President of. In this club she spends her time building high powered rockets, one of which will compete at Spaceport America. Through the rocketry club she also organizes events to encourage and inform students of opportunities and activities in the space industry. To develop professionally Liz had previously interned at Northrop Grumman where she worked as a Mechanical Integration and Test Engineering Intern on NASA’s HALO. While there Liz contributed to this part of Gateway by laying the foundation for the work instructions that will be used to build and test HALO.

Outside of this she enjoys being a Teacher's Assistant in the CS Department, ice skating, biking, bouldering, and spending time with friends and family. She also likes following synchronized skating which is the sport she competed on behalf of Team USA for.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow in 2023, Liz is thrilled to be interning with Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.