Rice University senior Cat-Linh Tran has been selected as a 2025 Brooke Owens Fellow, a prestigious honor recognizing exceptional undergraduates pursuing careers in aerospace. Tran, a mechanical engineering major, will spend the summer interning at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, as part of the highly competitive fellowship program.
“I’ve been following SpaceX since high school, so the idea of working there as a Brooke Owens Fellow is a dream come true,” Tran said.
The Brooke Owens Fellowship, founded in 2016, is a nationally acclaimed nonprofit program that provides space and aviation internships, executive mentorship and a lifelong professional network. The program honors the legacy of D. Brooke Owens, an aerospace pioneer and pilot who passed away from cancer at age 35. Each year, a select cohort of “Brookies” is chosen through a rigorous application process that includes technical and creative submissions, leadership interviews and reviews by industry professionals.
The 2025 cohort was selected from more than 400 applicants across Ivy League institutions, major research universities, historically Black colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges and international universities. Fellows are chosen for their technical talent, leadership experience, creative problem-solving skills and commitment to community engagement.
“Fellowships like this are so important because they provide access to mentorship, internships and a community of people who uplift and support each other,” Tran said.
Tran credits the Rice Emerging Scholars Program (RESP) — a residential initiative preparing first-year students for Rice’s rigorous STEM curricula — as pivotal in her academic journey and ultimately helping her earn such a prestigious fellowship. Inspired by her experience, she returned to RESP as a teaching fellow and said she is grateful to her adviser’s support throughout her time at Rice.
Tran’s engineering journey has spanned multiple fields, from biomedical design to heavy machinery. She has worked on a wearable grip assistance device, developed an enrichment feeder for the black bear exhibit at the Houston Zoo and interned at Wabtec (formerly GE Transportation) as a quality technical adviser for electric-drive mining vehicles.
She’s now taking her passion for engineering to aerospace, a field that first caught her attention during the COVID-19 pandemic when she was a senior in high school.
“I remember sitting at home, watching SpaceX launches on TV during quarantine,” Tran said. “It was fascinating, and it got me thinking about the future of space exploration.”
That spark turned into a full-circle moment in 2023, when she attended the Society of Women Engineers conference and toured SpaceX in person. During that visit, she met an engineer who was a past Brooke Owens Fellow, which is how she first learned about the program.
“It’s one thing seeing it on TV, but to see it in person is different,” Tran said. “At a time when I was doubting my career, the experience reignited my motivation for engineering and aerospace.”
With her focus firmly on aerospace, Tran is currently working with her senior capstone team to design an innovative rescue device for incapacitated crew members of extravehicular activities for NASA’s future Artemis missions — work she’ll almost certainly take with her after graduation.
Each Brooke Owens Fellow is paired with both an executive-level industry mentor and a “Brookie” alumni mentor to help guide them through their careers. In addition to working at SpaceX this summer, Tran will also attend the annual Brooke Owens Summit, where she will meet the rest of her 2025 cohort and aerospace leaders from across the industry.
“I can’t wait to meet my mentor and the other ‘Brookies,’” Tran said. “I’m super excited to join another supportive and inspiring community, and I hope to use this fellowship to uplift other women pursuing careers in aerospace.”