Ayomikun Gbadamosi
Patti Grace Smith Fellow, Class of 2023
Princeton University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ‘23
Host Institution: ABL Space Systems
Ayomikun Gbadamosi is currently senior at Princeton University, double-majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and pursuing minors in Computer Science and Robotics. Her interest in engineering manifested throughout her childhood with her finding enjoyment in using her creativity to build a variety of new crafts out of the limited materials she had access to. It was a common occurrence for her parents to return home and find her sitting in the midst of the scraps from a new project she had dreamt of overnight. Combining this love of creation with her natural curiosity about astronomy, and the prospect of multi-planetary life, led her to devote her efforts towards the development of technologies that will bring about a new era of advanced space travel and exploration.
Outside of her classes, she enjoys applying her skills and knowledge to interesting projects. One of her favorite projects involved writing the software controller for a drone to autonomously navigate a randomly-configured obstacle course. In her most recent project, she was invited to Naples, Italy, where she worked with experts in hypersonic vehicle aerothermodynamics at CIRA, the Italian Aerospace Research Center, while developing her own software tool to automate the design of thermal protection systems for hypersonic re-entry vehicles.
When she’s not immersed in a project, the rest of her free time is spent engaging with her community. As a member of the National Society of Black Engineers at her school, she enjoys planning study break events to facilitate peer learning and opportunity sharing amongst the black engineers. Furthermore, as a lead dancer in Dorobucci, Princeton University's premier African dance group, she spends several hours each week at rehearsals with her fellow dancers in preparation for their big cultural show at the end of each semester.
Following her graduation from Princeton, she looks forward to entering the Aerospace industry and ultimately utilizing her skills in computer science and aerospace engineering to improve spacecraft versatility and reusability through the development of intelligent, highly adaptable flight computers. While working as an engineer at ABL Space Systems, she is thrilled to be able to make her own contributions to increasing accessibility to space by streamlining the space vehicle design and launch process; and, she can’t wait to pursue more opportunities to lead innovation within the industry and progress towards a promising future for spaceflight.