Emily Albornoz and Hailey Polson ’26 named Brooke Owens Fellows

AeroAstro juniors Emily Albornoz and Hailey Polson ‘26 have been awarded Brooke Owens Fellowships, joining 44 outstanding undergraduate women and gender minorities in the space and aviation industry as part of the 2025 fellowship cohort, selected from a competitive pool of 400 applicants. The program will provide each student with personal mentorship, a network of other rising stars in the industry, and internships with top aerospace companies. 

“I’m honored to join the Brookie community and to have the opportunity to meet and learn from all of the inspiring women who are carrying on Brooke’s legacy,” says Polson. “I hope to build connections with fellows at institutions across the country in order to expand my personal support network in the field as well as learn from diverse perspectives about ideas and practices I can bring back to the MIT community.” 

At MIT, Polson is captain of MIT Doya, a rocketry team geared toward indigenous students; president of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society; has served her class as an officer of the class ring committee; and is an AeroAstro American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) executive board member. “This fellowship will give me the tools to further my efforts as a community advocate: to ensure that my peers have the resources they need to thrive and to inspire the next generation of female and Native American engineers.”

Albornoz is a structural engineer on the MIT Rocket Team, worked on the MIT WORMS project, traveled to the Teide Observatory in the Canary Islands to conduct research on brown dwarfs and exoplanets as part of MIT’s Astronomy Field Camp, and enjoys playing guitar in the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. “This program will help me grow my confidence as an engineer and find my place within the industry. Most importantly, I’m looking forward to being part of a strong community of young women who support each other as we navigate these next stages of our careers,” she says. 

This summer, Albornoz will be interning at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, while Polson will intern with the Space Systems group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.