Richard Wirz sometimes jokes that the word “aerospace” makes no sense.
“Aero means air, and space means the absence of air,” said Wirz, executive director for aerospace research programs and Boeing Professor of Mechanical Engineering Design at Oregon State University’s College of Engineering. “It’s like I study air and no air. Why are they even in the same category?”
Graduating with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering and an aerospace engineering minor in June 2022, Brittany Blanksma-Stark is eager to apply what she has learned in the College of Engineering toward creating a better future — and, possibly, exploring new worlds.
Jill Lewis (’11 B.S., Mechanical Engineering) didn’t set out to work at SpaceX, or even work in aerospace, but her experiences at Oregon State led her there.
Like many engineers, Lewis had an early interest in technology. As a child, she got her parents to take her to garage sales, where she found items like tripods and radios to play with. So, science and engineering were on her mind when she was planning for college.
When Kristen Travers went to see the 2017 film “Hidden Figures” her senior year of high school, she inadvertently found her career path.
“I was just so blown away and inspired by Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn,” she said. “The math that Katherine Johnson was doing in the movie was the same math that I was learning in my calculus class at that time. I thought, ‘This is so cool. I have to study engineering.’”
