The Middle School students had the pleasure of welcoming Lindsey Koelbel, who is a first cousin of Princeton Montessori middle school student, Kimberly Burnfield. Lindsey was visiting from Arizona, where she is a Junior at the University of Arizona Honors College. She is studying aerospace engineering and is working on a fascinating project with NASA. She is part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, and her research is focused on the navigational systems of satellites. More specifically, she is part of a team that is developing artificial intelligence that will allow satellites to navigate on their own, when traveling tens of millions of miles away from earth.
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The students were delighted to hear about Lindsey’s work, as well as the academic route that she has taken to get there. She became interested in aerospace while studying earth science in the eighth grade, and her love of math, physics and chemistry classes in high school made engineering a natural fit. It was wonderful for the students to connect with someone who isn’t much older than they are, who has turned their passion for math and science into an exciting career path.
