Wendy Okolo

w:Wendy Okolois a Nigerian aerospace research engineer in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center. She is the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas at Arlington. She is also the Special Emphasis Programs Manager for Women at Ames. Okolo obtained her secondary education at Queen's College, an all-girls school in Lagos, Nigeria. She then received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2010. Okolo later became the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UTA in 2015 at age 26. Her Ph.D. studies were supervised by Atilla Dogan.[4] During Okolo's undergraduate years, she served as president of the Society of Women Engineers at the university. Okolo started her career as an undergraduate intern for Lockheed Martin, working on NASA's Orion spacecraft. Over the course of two summers, she interned with the Requirements Management Office in Systems Engineering and the Hatch Mechanisms team in Mechanical Engineering. As a graduate student, Okolo later worked in the Control Design & Analysis Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Okolo is a Sub-Project Manager in the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA Ames. She is a research engineer in the Discovery and Systems Health Technology.

Quotes

• Yes, I got my Ph.D. in aerospace at UT Arlington in 2015. But before that, I was there for undergraduate and got my undergraduate degree in 2010.
• There’s no question. And what the Honors College did for me, was it positioned me to have a solid foundation in my course work and my academics, particularly the first few classes that I took that were Honors classes, really helped me – I would say, that they definitely helped me transition to the aerospace engineering program versus coming fresh out of high school and Nigeria because the classes were intimate and provided an opportunity for me to learn with other high-achieving students.
• So, when I got to grad school, it was a little different. My involvement with the Honors College was morphed. I was not really an Honors student which is more focused on undergrads.
• It was a lot of responsibility for sure. But it came with a lot of growth as well. Growth and independence of some sort.
• I was that person that would ask companies – hey, can your company help with this or that?
• Now, generally, you do have the expectations you set for yourself. To what extent does imposter syndrome manifests with you and it varies for different people. How I handle it is I try to be super, overly diligent with everything, I have to know everything. I have to start from scratch; I have to understand it. And it’s very imperative; it’s important for me that my achievements are attributed to my capabilities and not simply because I am a Woman of Color in this field. It has to be my technical expertise that has brought me here or taken me there.
• I didn’t have negative experiences. But again, you stand out, and it’s just how you stand out that matters. But you will stand out regardless when you’re in the minority: when you’re female, when you’re black, or when you’re young.
• The reason I started to share, the reason I created my professional Instagram and Twitter pages, is because I’ve heard a million and one times, that my story’s not just for me. People have told me multiple times – Wendy, it’s not about you, it’s bigger than you.
• Everybody just wants to know, what’s your story, how did you get to NASA? How did a 26-year-old black girl get a Ph.D. in something like aerospace engineering and get to work at NASA?
• I can’t even imagine how I would have struggled during the first year transitioning to being an aerospace engineering freshman at UT Arlington, but again arduous is relative.
• But instead, I basically kind of took a pay cut for higher learning. But with that pay cut and all of these fellowships, I was able to keep my head above water and focus on learning. Focus on my Ph.D. program.