• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2024

• Olin College of Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ‘24

• Wellesley College, Astrophysics, ‘23

• Host Institution: HawkEye 360

• Mentor: Ellen Stofan

• Brookie Mentor: Audrey Scott

Makenzi Fischbach is an alumna of Wellesley College, where she majored in Astrophysics and graduated in May of 2023. She is currently completing an additional year of study at Olin College of Engineering, and will graduate in May with a major in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Makenzi has been passionate about space for as long as she can remember. When she was 14, she decided she wanted to become an astrophysicist and never looked back. While still in high school, she did research on updating the fundamental parameters of brown dwarfs at the American Museum of Natural History. This experience inspired her to major in Astrophysics at Wellesley College. Throughout her time at Wellesley, she could often be found at the school’s observatory. At Whitin Observatory, she learned how to operate telescopes to photograph the universe.

As an undergrad, Makenzi did research on high mass stars at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She presented a poster on this research at the American Astronomical Society’s 237th meeting and was an author on a paper published in The Astronomical Journal. Makenzi also did research on gravitational-waves at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) through the LIGO SURF Program.

While studying astrophysics, Makenzi discovered an additional passion for engineering, and decided to participate in the Olin-Wellesley Double-Degree program. This program has allowed her to study both physics and engineering simultaneously and receive two Bachelor’s degrees. Before her year at Olin College of Engineering, she interned at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Cyber-Physical Systems group.

When Makenzi is not studying, she is performing. She has been dancing her entire life, including on the Wellesley and Babson College dance teams. She has also spent much of her life singing and acting, and has been in a handful of musicals, such as Billy Elliot on Broadway. Aside from performing, Makenzi loves reading and crocheting.

After graduating, Makenzi plans on going to graduate school for aerospace engineering and working towards her lifelong goal of becoming an astronaut. She is very excited to be a Brooke Owens Fellow and have the opportunity to work at HawkEye 360 this summer.