Wendy Okolo

Wendy A. Okolo is an aerospace research engineer in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center.[1] She is the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas at Arlington.[2] She is also the Special Emphasis Programs Manager for Women at Ames.[3]

Education

Okolo obtained her secondary education at Queen's College, an all-girls school in Lagos, Nigeria. She then received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2010. Okolo later became the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UTA in 2015 at age 26.[2] Her Ph.D. studies were supervised by Atilla Dogan.[4] During Okolo's undergraduate years, she served as president of the Society of Women Engineers at the university.[5]

Career

Okolo started her career as an undergraduate intern for Lockheed Martin, working on NASA's Orion spacecraft.[3] Over the course of two summers, she interned with the Requirements Management Office in Systems Engineering and the Hatch Mechanisms team in Mechanical Engineering.[3] As a graduate student, Okolo later worked in the Control Design & Analysis Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.[6]

Okolo is a Sub-Project Manager in the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA Ames.[7] She is a research engineer in the Discovery and Systems Health Technology (DaSH)[8]

Personal life

Okolo says her sisters taught her the sciences with their day-to-day realities. She describes them as her heroes.[7][9]

Awards

  • Amelia Earhart Fellowship (2012) [10]
  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship (2012) [4]
  • AIAA John Leland Atwood Graduate Award (2013) [11]
  • BEYA Global Competitiveness Conference Award (2019) - The Most Promising Engineer in the United States government.[1]
  • Women in Aerospace Award (2019) - Initiative, Inspiration, & Impact
  • NASA Ames Early Career Researcher Award (2019)
  • University of Texas at Arlington Distinguished Recent Graduate Award (2019)

See also

References

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