Three from AeroAstro awarded 2024 Amelia Earhart Fellowships

PhD students Mennatallah Hussein (ESL), Madelyn MacRobbie (MIT/Harvard MEMP Program), and Hannah Tomio (STAR Lab) were named 2024 Amelia Earhart Fellows by Zonta International. The $10,000 Fellowship, established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot and Zonta member Amelia Earhart, is awarded annually to up to 30 women pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering and space sciences. This year, four of the winners are MIT students. 

About the AeroAstro awardees:

Mennatallah Hussein
Mennatallah Hussein works in the Engineering Systems Laboratory with Professor Olivier de Weck. Her research focuses on space systems engineering and probabilistic modeling applied to launch vehicle failures and instabilities. 

Hussein graduated with her Master of Science in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT in 2023. Her master’s thesis was on a reduced order modeling of a rocket engine turbopump inducer to assess Pogo instability. Prior to moving to Massachusetts, she worked at the Egyptian Space Agency as a Space Systems Engineer, and she was also a member of the agency’s Education and Outreach efforts. Hussein received a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering at Arizona State University. She was recognized as the Class of 2020 Outstanding Graduate in Aerospace Engineering for her academic achievements and on-campus involvement. In 2022, she worked at Benchmark Space Systems as a Propulsion Engineering intern. 

Outside academics, Hussein was the International Chair for MIT’s Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (GA^3) in 2021, one of MIT’s AeroAstro diversity scholars for the year 2024, and a co-founder of A.S.U.’s chapter for Women of Aeronautics and Astronautics (WoAA), an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautic-affiliated support group for women in aerospace in 2019. She is passionate about contributing to space systems and propulsion advancement research and making space accessible to everyone.

Madelyn (Hoying) MacRobbie
Madelyn Hoying MacRobbie’s research in the Tearney Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital investigates aerospace physiology toward novel medical devices for long-duration spaceflight. Her Master in Science degree research focused on operations and emergency procedures in human surface exploration missions. Hoying graduated from Duquesne University in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in physics. She was also a 2020 nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. 

In addition, Hoying designs and leads analog missions to test new technologies, human operations, crew dynamics and recovery procedures in simulated planetary surface exploration missions. Analog research is one of her priorities to enable effective mission planning for human space activities due to facility size and cost constraints; however, not many opportunities exist for student involvement in analog missions. To increase access to human space research and improve opportunities for international collaboration on missions, she has designed and implemented a framework for large-scale analog missions that create opportunities for student engagement and accelerate test timelines, as researchers are no longer constrained by facility space.

Hannah Tomio
Hannah Tomio is a PhD student and NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) in  the Space, Telecommunications, Astronomy and Radiation (STAR) Lab, where her research focuses on developing miniaturized laser instruments suitable for small satellite platforms for communications and remote sensing applications. 

Her thesis seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of high precision ranging over optical inter-satellite communication links and advance the necessary technologies to enable this concept to become an operational capability for the next generation of laser communication systems. These range of measurements can be used for improved orbit determination, the positioning and coordination of satellites in a constellation and the synchronization of spacecraft clocks for distributed scientific instruments. This research effort is conducted in collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she is currently a Pathways Intern.Tomio has also completed internships at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Boeing and Tethers Unlimited. As a Matthew Isakowitz fellow, she interned at Made inSpace. 

Before coming to MIT, Tomio received a Bachelor of Science in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master’s in aerospace engineering from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, supported by a Japanese Government (MEXT) scholarship. In addition to research, she enjoys learning languages, snowboarding and running along the Charles River.