My name is Allison Howard, I am a junior studying Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University. I am from Bloomington, Illinois which is about 6 hours from my college town.

I chose Aerospace Engineering because of my passion for space science and math. Growing up, I was fascinated by all things space related including NASA Missions and news about new planets found. In 5th grade, I completed a mock mission to Mars with my classmates at my local community college, and this allowed me to really see what it looks like to be in mission control. I was the Navigator and there were students in a different room simulating a spacecraft, and so I had to relay information on my computer screen about where they were headed. It is so cool to look back on that experience and see how much of an impact it had on my career path.

At Iowa State, I am involved in many activities, and I like to do different things occasionally. Some of these include participating in marching band, concert band, OpenUAS Research, being a WiSE Student Role Model, AerE Peer Mentor and a SWE member. Being in this many activities has really been the highlight of my college career, especially marching band as it is a huge undertaking. Rehearsals are every day in the fall for an hour and a half, and then Gamedays on Saturdays are basically the entire day because we rehearse 5 hours before kickoff and do other activities before the game starts. It is truly a rewarding experience, getting to interact with fans and being able to perform on the football field. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything else.

Being on the OpenUAS Research team has also been very exciting! I joined last semester (Fall 2022) as a Design team member, and will soon be taking over as Design Team Lead. The overall objective of our research is to design a UAV capable of being replicated using minimal materials and have it be cost-effective. In the past, the team has managed to develop some very cool designs that they are able to test in real time at a launch site. As a member of the design team, I utilize SolidWorks to create a 3D model of the unmanned-air-vehicle which is then handed off to the Manufacturing team for them to start building. This team is under the direction of Dr. Kristin Rozier.