Dr. Michelle Christensen

If her little brother hadn’t gotten sick on a trip to Disney World,Dr. Michelle Christensen might not be building rocket engines for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Her dad took 5-year-old Michelle to Kennedy Space Center for the day, and she remembers standing under a Redstone rocket and staring at the engine. She wanted to know how it worked. Her parents looked for every opportunity to encourage their daughter’s interests, and at 14, she flew across the country to Space Camp for the first time. “I remember getting to camp and meeting these kids from all over the world,” Michelle said. She had found her place. She came back in 11th grade and worked as a Space Camp crew trainer in college, which led her to transfer to the University of Alabama in Huntsville to study aerospace engineering. Through UAH, she got a research job at Marshall Space Flight Center and then went on to Pennsylvania State University for her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Today, she’s at the cutting-edge of the commercial space industry helping build reusable rockets. She’s also found the same kind of teamwork environment she loved at Space Camp.