Mika Clark

• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2020

• California State University, Los Angeles, Mechanical Engineering ‘22

• Host Institution: Northrop Grumman

• Mentor: Scott Parazynski

Mika Clark is a new transfer student studying Mechanical Engineering at California State University, Los Angeles. Having started as a California community college student, Mika is thrilled to be going through college without debt. Apart from her passion for counting pennies, Mika is passionate about all things building, manufacturing, and space.

Starting in high school, Mika was part of a FIRST robotics team – years later she remains a part of the FIRST community volunteering to this day – and ultimately became the president her senior year. Her high school junior and senior years were spent studying and receiving certifications in CNC Mill and Lathe operation and programming. Mika was also a key-note speaker for her school district raising 100k for widespread engineering education.

Her college freshman year, Mika interned at Scaled Composites where she designed and fabricated aircraft parts, after which Mika began work at an academy teaching kids robotics, programming, and software. Mika is passionate about advocating and teaching what she has learned so that others can find that passion too. Today, at Cal State LA, Mika is doing biomedical engineering research under Professor Mathias Brieu testing tissue samples.

Apart from all of this, Mika adores volunteering at a local cat shelter, embarrassing her five siblings, crocheting far too much, and watching bad movies.

As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Mika will be interning at Northrop Grumman.