• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• Stanford University, Aerospace Engineering, ‘23

• Host Institution: ABL

• Mentor: Lori Glaze

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Maya Harris is a senior at Stanford University majoring in Aeronautics and Astronautics and minoring in Creative Writing. She has always loved the way that space is able to inspire wonder and camaraderie among people, and after graduation she hopes to pursue a Master's Degree in Human-Systems Collaboration. Her ultimate goal is to help further the growth of human society in outer space.

Maya has been fortunate to be able to intern all across the space industry. She spent two summers as a systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and another as a structural design intern at Boeing. During the 2020-21 school year, Maya took a gap year and worked for Orbit Fab, where she was able to help design, build, test, and launch the world's first propellant depot in space. Most recently, she worked as a systems and integration engineer at Virgin Galactic as a 2022 Matthew Isakowitz Fellow.

At school, Maya is a heavily involved member of the Stanford Student Space Initiative, a project-based club with hundreds of members. During her years of involvement, she has served as the club's co-president, rocket team co-lead, and policy team co-lead, and she is passionate about encouraging people from all fields to learn about space. Maya is also a research assistant in Stanford's Reconfigurable and Active Structures Lab.

Maya's interest in space doesn't end with engineering; she is also a space policy enthusiast and a budding science fiction writer. She is absolutely thrilled to be representing the Brooke Owens Fellowship this summer as a Propulsion Intern at ABL.