Name: Kate Fowee

 

Birthplace: Wheaton, IL

 

AAE Major: Propulsion

 

Student Classification: Masters Student

 

Name and location of company/organization where you are an intern: Northrop Grumman Corporation  at Space Park in Redondo Beach, California and El Segundo, California

 

What are your job duties? I am doing a rotation of sorts for my internship. For the first 7 weeks I am alternating between working in logistics for program management on the F35 in Redondo Beach and working in El Segundo with a team developing propulsion modeling tools to help with inlet and nozzle design. For the last four weeks I will be doing integration and test for hardware for the James Webb Space Telescope. 

 

Why did you want to do this internship? Northrop  Grumman is a historic and cutting edge aerospace company. I worked for them last summer and liked the work atmosphere and the work life balance. Because I returned, my hiring manager was able to give me more opportunities to see the company. I have found the areas I am interested in pursuing in the future as well as areas that I don't like as much. 

 

What do you hope to gain from the experience? I hope to learn more about how a major aerospace company operates but also to see more of the work I could do here. My future is very much still what I want to make of it with a few more years of school to go. I want to have the best possible idea of what I want to do with my career before I have to make any big decisions. 

 

Have you done other co-ops/internships as an AAE student? I interned last summer at Northrop Grumman. I worked on F35 project engineering, metrology and data systems. I also participated in SURF with AAE Professor Alina Alexeenko the summer before. 

 

What are your ultimate career goals? My ultimate career goal is to be involved in human space flight, preferably in propulsion, though I am fascinated by human factors. And, like most of my classmates, I would never pass on the opportunity to be an astronaut. I want to be involved in exploring the universe and expanding what we know and understand of it.