Sam Albert and Sydney Dolan were part of the first Matt Isakowitz Fellowship Program in 2018 while they were students in AAE. The Fellowship offers internships, one-on-one mentoring and a loaded two-day summit that includes networking with top leaders in industry. (Photo: Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program)
Initially, Sydney Dolan was intimidated.
The caliber of students chosen in the inaugural Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program in 2018 was significant, 24 individuals selected from the top aerospace engineering schools in the country, including Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford, University of Illinois and University of Colorado Boulder. That included Dolan, a then-senior-to-be at Purdue in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Sam Albert, who was selected during his senior year in AAE.
So the student pool, definitely solid.
What Dolan quickly realized as she became immersed in the Fellowship, after being interviewed and placed at one of the host companies that supplied a paid 10-12-week summer internship, was that the underlying message of the program was about following passions — and showing compassion to others. Those were characteristics of Matthew Isakowitz, an engineer passionate about commercial space exploration who died in 2017. With that new perspective, Dolan relished every special opportunity being a Fellow provided, from scoring that hands-on internship (NanoRacks), to being paired with an advisor for a year’s worth of one-on-one mentorship, to connecting with other Fellows in the program and building a supportive network of fellow fledgling engineers.
It’s no surprise, then, Dolan is so insistent on praising the Fellowship — and wanting more students to know about it. The Fellowship is closely modeled after another national one, the Brooke Owens Fellowship, except its eligibility requirements include both men and women. The Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship serves college juniors, rising seniors and graduate students. The application deadline for the 2020 class is December 2.
“It’s a really good opportunity,” said Dolan, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from AAE in December 2018 and currently attends MIT. “They have access to a lot of the start-up companies, and it’s hard to get your foot in the door. You really have to know someone to work at a start-up. Also, the mentoring and networking is unbelievable. Gwynne Shotwell ... (and) being able to network with the president of Virgin Galactic. The head of business development at Blue Origin. These are the people who started commercial space. For them to invest in our potential, take one-on-one time with us, that’s a really good deal.”
In addition to receiving the paid internship from one of 20 host companies and one-on-one mentoring from accomplished members of the space community, including astronauts, engineers, entrepreneurs, executives and investors, the program culminates in a two-day summit. The summit includes networking with top leaders in industry, visits to space start-ups and development in entrepreneurial skills. In 2019, SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk took questions from Fellows and an entrepreneurship panel included George Whitesides (CEO, Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company).
“For me, as amazing as the internship and mentorship were, perhaps the best part was meeting all of the other fellows at the summit,” said Albert, who is now in graduate school at the University of Colorado Boulder. “This is an exceptional group of people I feel lucky to have met. Plus, the group is growing as the fellowship continues, and some of the 2018 Fellows and I, including Sydney, got to drop in on this year’s summit and meet the 2019 Fellows. So, the community is only growing and that’s a major benefit of the Fellowship.
“Also, the people at the heart of the Isakowitz fellowship, along with Matthew himself, were central players in the early days of the ‘New Space’ economy, so hearing from speakers at the summit and talking with the program mentors was an unmatched way to get direct insight into the world of commercial space, and how it has developed over the past 15 years or so. Thanks to the Fellowship I am much better equipped to understand and contextualize news about the world of commercial space today.”