Registration is full for 2013. Contact WomenFly! to get on our waiting list (info can be found on the registration forms).

Women Fly! is The Museum of Flight's annual special event for young women in middle and high school who are interested in aviation and aerospace careers. Girls are invited to participate in a day of motivational and career-oriented activities while meeting and learning from exceptional women working in these fields. Volunteering their time are dozens of women aerospace professionals: airport operators, pilots, air traffic controllers, and engineers in all disciplines.

Schedule:

Scheduled Speakers:

Ashley Stroupe - NASA Mars Rover Driver

Dr. Stroupe has been a Staff Engineer at JPL since December 2003. She works in flight operations for the Mars Exploration Rovers, building sequences for rover driving and operating the robotic arm as well as doing long-term planning for rover traverse. She is also working on the development of the flight mission Mars Science Laboratory, evaluating terrain near potential landing sites. Her research focuses on multi-robot teams in complex environments and behavior-based control, with applications to exploration and mapping, dynamic target observation, and cooperative manipulation. In addition to the research listed here, Dr. Stroupe participates broadly in community activities such as outreach and education and has published multiple conference papers, book chapters, and journal articles in robotics. She recently appeared on "Five Years on Mars" on the National Geographic Channel.

Kavya Manyapu - Boeing Flight Test Engineer

Kavya Manyapu is an aspiring astronaut, presently working as a flight test engineer for the Boeing Commercial Spacecraft, CST-100. She holds a M.S in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and a B.S in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. She has worked on space projects including the Orion-Constellation program at Lockheed Martin, ISS and Delta IV at the Boeing Company as an intern, Space Robotics at MIT, Mars Entry, Descent and Landing at Georgia Tech and on Boeing’s 777 aircraft structures. In 2010, she was selected to be a crew member for an analog Mars Mission organized by Mars Society.  She is a private pilot and a certified SCUBA diver. She is presently training in Aerobatics as a hobby and to adapt herself to the rigors of space missions. Apart from her day job, Kavya enjoys educating and inspiring students to pursue careers in Engineering and Science. During the 2012 Astronaut selections, she made it to the top 6% highly qualified in the selection process. She is part of an organization called Astronauts for Hire training to be a commercial astronaut for future commercial space vehicles. In 2011, she won the Woman Engineer of the Year award from American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin. She is also a professional classical dancer and has won an award from the President of India in 1999. She further wants to pursue her PhD in Space Life Sciences.

WomenFly! is made possible by generous donations by our sponsors

The Museum of Flight Access Champion