• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2019

• Georgia Institute of Technology, Bachelors of Science in Aerospace Engineering, '21

• Host Institution: Astranis

• Mentor: Pam Melroy

Ever since she visited the Hayden Planetarium at the age of seven, Saumya Sharma aspired to be an astronaut and push the boundaries of exploring the wonders of space. As a recent graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, majoring in aerospace engineering, Saumya is excited to start her next chapter within the commercial space industry. The Brooke Owens Fellowship has been a dream come true and reminds Saumya of the possibilities in this field.

During her junior year of high school, Saumya worked at the University of Texas Center for Space Research applying remote sensing techniques to Landsat-8 satellite images to understand the impact of the March 2016 Houston flooding. Gaining knowledge on the application side of satellites and the use of LiDAR, Saumya joined the NASA TARGIT CubeSat research project at Georgia Tech. Saumya was the lead of the LiDAR subsystem for the TARGIT CubeSat and saw TARGIT deploy from the ISS in January 2022 to begin its on-orbit operations. And TARGIT was just the beginning of Saumya working on critical space hardware that touched the cosmos…

Through the course of her undergrad, Saumya completed four aerospace internships spanning various fields. As a freshman, she worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering group working on structural analysis on the exterior of an ESPA class satellite. As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Saumya worked for Astranis designing critical ground support equipment required to assemble their first small satellite which will provide internet connectivity for Alaska. Using that industry knowledge, Saumya worked from Jan 2020 to July 2020 at SpaceX down at the Cape Canaveral site. During her time there, she ensured successful launches for IFA, CRS-20, and Demo-2 as a team member of the Dragon Final Integration team. The surreal moment of watching Demo-2 dock with the ISS will forever remain with her. In hopes to transition to the GNC field, this past summer, Saumya worked as an Autonomous Software Architecture intern at Blue Origin working on software validation & verification for GNC applications for New Glenn. Finally, this upcoming summer, Saumya is absolutely stoked to live out her dreams of living in Southern California as a Launch Operations & Integration intern at Virgin Orbit.

In addition to working on the cutting-edge of the aerospace industry, Saumya truly believes that you must leave the world better place than you found it. Saumya was one of the founding members of Women of Aerospace and Astronautics (WoAA) with AIAA support. Saumya worked closely with several other university across the world to help empower gender minorities in aerospace college chapters under one strong organization. Presently, Saumya is the co-lead of the Politics Team for the Sunrise Movement – Atlanta hub. Advocating for a just and equal future focused on green-energy policies for all has been a passion for Saumya, and she hopes to be politically active to ensure inclusive legislative is passed on levels of government.

Currently, Saumya is working at the Recreational Equipment Inc (REI Co-op) to take a break prior to attending graduate school for her master’s degree in aerospace engineering concentrating on guidance and navigation. While working part-time, she is embracing her more “crunchy” side by camping at places such as Amicalola Falls, GA; Olympic National Park, WA; etc as well as training for a 10K race. Outside of passion for getting lost in the woods, Saumya absolutely loves shredding in the ocean while surfing and doing the same on land through skateboarding. Not only does she enjoy surfing, but Saumya competitively swam & played basketball in high school and played for the Georgia Tech Women’s Waterpolo Team. Whether it is an aerospace problem or crazy adventure pushing the boundaries of the human resolve – sign Saumya up!