Hello everyone!

I know it’s been quite some time since I blogged. I have been so busy with ending my internship and going back to flight training before classes start in fall! I ended my internship about a week ago and had 2 back-to-back conferences during my last two weeks.

The first conference was the Brooke Owens Fellowship Conference. This conference brought together 36 young women in aviation and aerospace industry in DC- from solving a Grand Challenge with 5 astonishing colleagues and JPL’s head of Mars mission to meeting Pamela Melroy, former NASA astronaut and one of two women to command a space shuttle mission, to performing spoken word poetry in honour of Dawn Brooke Owens, to partying on a pirate boat with the leading aerospace experts.

The second one was the ALPA Air Safety Forum held in Washington DC. This forum featured panels and discussions with aviation safety and security experts, recognition of outstanding pilot contributions and more. I was able to  interact with many of the pilots and industry stakeholders that I had met at other meetings during the course of my internship, and I also got to hear from Robert Sumwalt during the Keynote Lunch Speech. I even celebrated my 21st birthday (July 17th), which was the first day of this conference by going out for dinner with some friends!

Soon after my internship, I came back home to Bradenton, where my family gave me a surprise birthday cake and gifts! It was great to see them for a few days before starting my flight training.

I am currently working on my private pilot and just finished my first solo last week. I hope you all are having a great summer and are ready to start classes in a few weeks!!!

Until next time,

Maryam