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OUR MISSION

Created to honor the legacy of a beloved space industry pioneer and accomplished pilot, Dawn Brooke Owens (1980 – 2016). The Brooke Owens Fellowship was established to help address a historic gender imbalance in the aerospace field. The organization’s programs are designed to serve both as an inspiration and as a career boost to capable young women and gender minorities who, like Brooke, aspire to explore our sky and stars, advance the aerospace industry, and help their fellow people here on planet Earth. Its mission is to provide opportunities and access to talented female and gender minority students from all backgrounds who have been previously underrepresented in the aerospace community.

THE BROOKE OWENS FELLOW EXPERIENCE

Brooke Owens Fellows are selected for their talent, their experience to date, their commitment to service, and their creativity. Their experience in the program is designed to help them grow in each of those areas, turning promising students into thriving leaders. The Brooke Owens Fellow experience is highlighted by the following four elements: 

HISTORY

The Brooke Owens Fellowship was founded to honor the memory of beloved industry pioneer and pilot D. Brooke Owens, who passed away in June 2016 at the age of 36, after a hard-fought battle with cancer. The program was co-founded by Lori Garver, the former Deputy Administrator of NASA; Cassie Lee, CEO of Sound Future; and William Pomerantz, the Head of Space Ventures at AeroVironment. The program was grown and nurtured with the input, assistance, guidance, and encouragement from countless more aerospace leaders whose lives were improved by knowing Brooke.

Shortly after Brooke passed away in 2016, Lori, Cassie, and Will worked together to develop a new program to carry on her legacy. Like Brooke, it was to be something unique and purpose-driven, designed to tackle a complex, high-stakes challenge. Fueled by passion and by Brooke’s legacy, we prototyped, deployed, implemented, and iterated through two classes of Fellows. Across the board, our Fellows have reported feeling both more driven and better prepared for successful careers in aerospace as a result of their experiences in our program.

Currently, the program is run by a five-member Executive Team—Sirisha Bandla, Lori Garver, Maddie Kothe, Caryn Schenewerk, and Kayla Watson—who are jointly responsible for everything from spreading the word to potential applicants, running the selection committee, matching Fellows and Hosts, hand-picking Mentors for each Fellow, and coordinating our annual Brooke Owens Summit. The members of the executive board each take a personal interest in fostering the future success of each and every Fellow.

Eight times now, we have been able to identify, recruit, and place nearly 400 extraordinary undergraduate women and gender minorities into meaningful jobs at phenomenal institutions. Our Fellows have helped conduct launches; built flight hardware for launch vehicles, aircraft, and satellites; educated and inspired an even younger generation; prepared reports that inform federal policy and industry standards; and have helped their Host companies raise money, impress customers, and deliver on inspiring missions. They have formed one-on-one relationships with mentors that include astronauts, CEOs, a self-made billionaire, and celebrated scientists and engineers.

We are honored that our Fellowship program has been honored with the Patti Grace Smith Award from the American Astronautical Society and the Stakeholder Expansion Award from the Space Frontier Foundation. But our favorite accomplishments to date are the those of the three hundred and forty-five incredible women and gender minorities who call themselves “Brookies”—so many of whom are now beginning their careers with full-time jobs at our Host institutions, armed with a network of top-tier mentors and a cohort of like-minded, similarly extraordinary young women and gender minorities set up for long term success.

None of this would have been possible without an incredible community of individuals and organizations that share our purpose. Had we not found willing partners at incredible companies and non-profits across so many different sectors of aerospace; or if these firms had not stepped up to show a shared commitment to increasing gender equality in our industry and to recruiting, training, and retaining the best talent available, this program would be nothing more than a name and a dream. From our inspiring Host companies to our beloved Mentors, and from our friends at The Future Space Leaders Foundation – who hosted as a program before we earned our own legal status a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit – to every individual who has ever spread the word about the program or made a donation, we have succeeded due to the generosity, dedication, and creativity of our friends and peers. 

We are a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. The program is run by an all-volunteer Leadership Team and one full-time Fellowship Administrator. We also have the help of a network of volunteer coordinators and mentors – including our alumnae. All donations we receive go directly to recruiting and supporting our Fellows, and are tax deductible to the legal limit as allowed by the IRS.