• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2022

• Arizona State University, Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering, ‘24

• Host Institution: SpaceX

• Executive Mentor: Laurie Abadie

• Brookie Mentor: Sarah Gomez

Sierra Malmberg is a third-year mechanical engineering student at Arizona State University, but has always had the goal to work in aerospace. Ever since she watched the Geminid meteor shower with her dad at age 11, she has been fascinated by space and the process of getting there. This passion, along with her love of tinkering with things and building Legos growing up, lead her to engineering in the space industry.

In college she jumped into various engineering clubs, like Society of Automotive Engineers, Sun Devil Rocketry, and especially Society of Women Engineers. She has always been most interested in the hands-on aspect of her degree and was fortunate enough to secure a highly-sought after position as a student worker in the engineering machining shop. All of these things helped her land a test engineering internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the summer of 2021. Sierra is thrilled to be a Brookie and hopes to continue learning about integration and test at SpaceX’s Starbase for her next internship as a Starship build engineering intern.

Sierra has had her fair share of ups and downs, and especially with the recent loss of one of her closest family members, she feels even more inspired to use her gifts and drive to help people. This has always been her main motivation: touch and help as many people as she can with the opportunities she has been given. Sierra continues to be involved in STEM outreach, speaking at various events to inspire K-12 students. In her free time, she loves to hang out with her friends, hike, write poems and worship songs, play guitar, and inspire as many people as she can along the way with her story. Her hope is that her career in aerospace will have a direct impact on the people around her and beyond, inside and outside of her future company.