Why did you choose to study at Illinois?

To get away from my parents. No, no, I’m joking.

Actually, it came down to looking at rankings for the top schools in aerospace on U.S. News & World Report. The University of Illinois was up there, so I applied. I’d never even been to the Midwest before coming here so I had no idea what it would be like.

Why aerospace engineering?

It seems like for a lot of people it takes a while for them to figure out what they want to do in life. For me, it was when I was six of seven. My grandparents gave me these nice, metal, display-quality model airplanes that I liked playing with. One day, I ask my grandfather if there is a career in the world where I can work on airplanes and build them? He told me I could be an aerospace engineer.

What course or professor helped you choose your specialty?

Since I was a sophomore, I’ve been working under Professor Panerai in the Center for Hypersonic Entry Space Systems. I was fascinated with the high-temperature stuff—how to make sure it survives when it’s re-entering an atmosphere.  He got me designing and building a calorimeter then testing it in the PlasmatronX.

 What projects helped you gain technical expertise?

The summer after my sophomore year, I worked on the atomic oxygen chamber in the Aerodynamics Research Lab with Nick Anderson, who was one of Dr. Panerai’s Ph.D. students. We heated graphite rods inside the chamber until they glowed red hot, then throw air at it to see how it reacts to recreate a re-entry environment. I was even an author on a paper we got published. On my own, I read a lot of research papers about graphite oxidation.

What are you particularly proud of?

I was in Illinois Space Society for my first couple of years working on a rocket that would reach the Karman level. I was on the team building the nose cone and we had a lot of failure. We had two launches that were unsuccessful.  Using our limited resources, we scavenged away to iterate different designs until we were successful. As a team, failure was not an option. We believed we had more to give, and we weren't satisfied with just repeating failures. We thought of new ideas, put our heads together and came up with solutions that we thought would work, and we did it.

Did you have any internships and/or study abroad trips?

I had an internship at Sandia National Laboratories in Alburquerque for the summer after my junior year, then they kept me on remotely all this past year.  I’ll be going back there again this summer.  The work they have me doing is related to the research I’ve done here, except instead of an atomic oxygen chamber, it with a spinning disk reactor. This summer, I’ll be creating a test matrix, a campaign of conditions such as temperatures, pressures, flow rates, etc.

I also went on the aerospace study-abroad trip to South Africa last year. To be honest, what I liked most about the industry visits were the conversations we had with people who worked there. We also visited a Muslim neighborhood, took a tram up to a wildlife preserve and saw a penguin sanctuary.  It was a fast-paced, jam-packed trip.

Describe a challenge you faced and how you resolved it? 

When I first got to college, I was very focused. I had a goal in mind: to study hard and get a 4.0. So, I applied myself, too much, I think. I didn’t feel happy. I started going to parties to balance studying with a social life. I met a lot of friends initially from Illinois Space Society, but I also met a lot of people from different teams who were in different majors.

My statistics professor said, “College is 126 weeks. Make the most of it.” That resonated deeply with me. I didn’t want to be one-dimensional. College is more than just academics. It’s about experiencing new things, interacting with people who are different from me and growing as an individual. There's no better place i could have accomplished that than here at Illinois.

What extracurricular experience stands out as memorable for you?

I tried intramural soccer for a semester, but mostly I like running. This semester I’m training for the half Marathon in the Christie Clinic in Urbana.  Every day I run three to five miles. I’ve embraced it. The first mile, everyone feels like it’s easy. After that, the mental stuff kicks in and that’s a nice head space to be in.

How did you decide what to do after you graduate?

I’ll be continuing to work with Francesco Panerai toward my Ph.D.  I was contemplating whether to go the industry route or get my M.S./Ph.D. and it really came down to wanting to become an expert in the field. I think that will pay the most dividends for me down the line. Not just for job prospects, but looking back in 50 years, I can say I made the most of my opportunities in college—to learn as much as I could.

My grandfather was a professor at MIT. He told me that to advance in R&D, which is what I’m interested in, I should at least get a master’s degree. My plan is to stay for the Ph.D. and see where it takes me.

Do you have other career goals?

I want to be a leader and bring out the best in people. If I have a vision for something, it would be hard to accomplish if I have no power. I want to learn from those who have seen it all before. There’s an untapped amount of wisdom. You just need to ask them, before you go down a path and make the same mistakes.

What's on your bucket list for the next five years?

Finish my Ph.D. and I definitely want to get my pilot’s license. I’ve been dreaming about that for a decade plus. I’d like to start a business of some sort. My grandparents are German and my mom’s Ecuadorian, so I’ve traveled a lot to Germany, Ecuador, Italy and other places, but I’d like to where people live on the fringes, like Iceland and the Atacama Desert in Chile. I’d like to check out extreme environments.