About Me

Hi! My name is Annika, and I’m an engineer, storyteller, and passionate advocate for gender minorities in STEM. I am currently the director of engineering at Aurelia Institute, a non-profit space architecture R&D lab, education and outreach center, and policy hub dedicated to building humanity’s future in space.

I studied aeronautical and astronautical at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where I also minored in creative writing and literature while rowing at the Division I level. During my undergraduate summers, I interned at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I worked on early project design and formulation with Team X and operations for the Juno mission to Jupiter. After graduation, I interned at Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences where I built multidisciplinary optimization programs to aid in next-generation aircraft design.

I started graduate school here at CU in 2018 with Professor Robert Braun studying entry, descent, and landing systems. In 2019, I interned at Blue Origin as a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) engineer as part of the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship, and got to spend a beautiful summer in the Pacific Northwest working on control algorithms and simulations for sea-based rocket landings.

In 2020, I defended my Master’s Degree on hypersonic dynamics for aerocapture, and transitioned over to Bioastronautics to work with Professor David Klaus on next-generation deep space habitat design. That year, I was also selected as one of 35 Amelia Earhart Fellows worldwide. In 2023, I defended my PhD on a methodology for prioritizing technology investment for the future of human habitats in deep space.

In my free time, I’m an avid cyclist, trail runner, and reader of all things fantasy and science fiction.