01/31/2022
NSPA would like everyone to join us in congratulating Sydney Menne on being named a 2022 Brooke Owens Fellow! This is a very prestigious honor 🎊 This year the Brooke Owens Fellowship (BOF) received the largest pool of applicants with over 1,000 submissions from around the world, coming from Ivy League universities, major research universities, historically black colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and major international universities. Fifty-one students were selected after multiple interviews. The Fellows were selected based on their commitment to their communities, stand-out creative abilities, record of leadership, incredible talent, and their desire to pursue a career in aerospace. Sydney is the first “Brookie” from a university in North Dakota. Through BOF, Sydney will join the propulsion engineering team for the LauncherOne rocket with Virgin Orbit in Long Beach, CA this summer.
Sydney Menne is a junior double-majoring in Physics and Mathematics. She grew up around planes in Minneapolis, Minnesota and got her pilot’s license before coming to UND. On campus, she does research in physics and enjoys promoting STEM as a NASA STEM Ambassador. In her free time, Sydney enjoys hiking, traveling, and being involved in student organizations including the Advanced Rocketry Club, the Big Event, the Honors Program Student Organization, and the Nordic ski club.
Thank you to her network of supporters through ND Space Grant Consortium, McNair, NSF-funded US MASTER program, Honors Program, professors in the physics/astrophysics and mathematics departments, and especially her mentor Dr. Tim Young.
Here is the link to Brooke Owens Press Release that describes the next steps for Sydney: https://www.brookeowensfellowship.org/blog/posts/2022-press-release
Here is the link to a UND Today article that came out last week about Sydney’s accomplishment: http://blogs.und.edu/und-today/2022/01/und-junior-wins-prestigious-national-fellowship/
Thank you, Sydney, for making UND and North Dakota proud, and congratulations!