The American Astronautical Society recently interviewed Sirisha Bandla, a Founding Team Member of the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program. See below for an excerpt about her involvement in the Program:
What is the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program and how did you become involved with the program?
After college, I ended up interviewing for a space policy job in DC at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. I got that job and my predecessor, who basically gave me a crash course on what space policy is, was Matthew Isakowitz. Matthew was the first person to really bring me into the space policy community. Prior to that, I didn’t have a real appreciation for the role policy plays in a lot of our decisions and programs.
Unfortunately, Matthew passed away in 2017. Matthew always had a rare, great understanding of policy, business, and engineering. His family wanted to focus and emulate that understanding in the future generations, so they started the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship program. They brought me on board to help organize their first-year efforts. Last year we had 24 fellows that were juniors, seniors, or post-grad in an engineering field. We placed them in a commercial company, so they could gain experience in an entrepreneurial space focused environment. We also paired them with an external mentor, which added that mentorship aspect to the fellowship as well. We want this experience to be more than just an internship – it’s something that builds a community and allows each class of fellows to pass on what they’ve learned to the next class of fellows and to those around them.