• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2021

• University of Colorado Boulder, Aerospace Engineering, ‘22

• Host Institution: Rocket Lab

• Mentor: Tess Hatch

• Brookie Mentor: Katie Bishop

Maria Callas is a junior at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder majoring in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Electrical Engineering, and Systems & Signals.

In Spring 2020, Maria did a six month co-op at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Boston, MA. She worked as a performance engineer on a hazard detection ladar system for JPL’s Europa Lander concept. She was also involved in test engineering for an International Space Station optical payload experiment. At Lincoln Laboratory Maria planned and participated in STEM outreach activities for local middle school girls.

Previously, Maria worked under Dr. Allison Anderson and Dr. Torin Clark in the CU Bioastronautics Laboratory. She received a UROP grant and contributed to research investigating multi-modal stochastic resonance to enhance astronaut perceptual performance. At the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in Boulder she worked in mission operations and operational software for Mars Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), a Mars orbiter currently investigating how the planet’s climate has changed over time.

At CU, Maria is a Norlin Scholar and a Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity Scholar. Growing up outside of Boulder Maria has always spent her free time in the mountains hiking and skiing. She enjoys climbing, running, cooking Greek food with her family, and drawing.

Maria is excited about the commercial space industry and making space more accessible. Her goal is to use her creative and technical skills to contribute to climate science, modeling and mitigation. She is passionate about remote sensing, communication systems, and using space infrastructure to improve environmental monitoring. Maria is also interested in space sustainability. She plans to pursue graduate school for Electrical Engineering concentrating in optics and photonics.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Maria will be interning at Rocket Lab in Long Beach, CA.