• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Aerospace Engineering, ‘24

• Host Institution: Hermeus

• Mentor: Jenny Young

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Sophie Pieta is a third-year student working towards an aerospace engineering major and mathematics minor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her interest in the stars began with a backyard telescope and watching the skies with her family (including watching lunar eclipses from a blanket-filled bathtub and planning a trip to Jefferson City, MO for 2017’s solar eclipse). Sophie decided that she wanted to pursue aerospace engineering during an engineering camp in high school, at which she was able to see the James Webb Space Telescope in construction.

Through internship opportunities at Astra and SpaceX, an undergraduate research opportunity through the Center for Exascale-enabled Scramjet Design (CEESD) at UIUC, and her extracurricular involvements, Sophie has explored aerospace engineering through structural design, hypersonics, propulsion, and dynamics. Right now she’s very into engines - but given that everything new she’s learned through this field of study has excited her, she’s always happy to learn more.

At UIUC, Sophie is extremely involved in her university’s SEDS Chapter. Her past responsibilities have included working on the Educational Outreach Board, as the society’s Social Director, on the recovery team of the club's Spaceshot rocket (planned to pass the Kármán line) and as the Solid Propulsion team’s Simulation and Optimization Lead. Through her involvement as a Zed Factor Fellow (Class of ’22), Sophie has developed and taught a model rocketry program for her high school, and is passionate about expanding aerospace outreach to that and other communities.

Though the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Sophie will be working as a Propulsion Engineer Intern at Hermeus in Altanta, GA. As she describes it to friends and family, she’s extremely excited to work on “Top Gun: Maverick”-style vehicle engines.

When not buried in her schoolwork, Sophie loves being outside, spending time with her dog (and friends), and making time to try new things, be it recipes, places, music - anything. On campus, she spends time outside of academics with her friends from Illini Rowing and Catholic Illini.