Aerospace engineer, artist, and animal loverHeather Alpern ’07

Heather Alpern ’07 wears many hats: engineer, artist, and animal shelter volunteer, to name a few. She keeps busy pursuing her master’s degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and working as a contractor for the Naval Research Laboratory and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. When she has a spare moment, she may also be found tinkering with a design project or taking care of rescued dogs.

With all of her accomplishments, Alpern is proud to say that her experiences at McLean School made a lasting impact on her character today.

“McLean definitely sculpted me into who I am,” Alpern said.

Alpern arrived at McLean in third grade shy and self-conscious about her dyslexia. But she soon learned that she had nothing to worry about. In her small classes, Alpern received one-on-one support from her teachers and developed close relationships with her peers.

“You feel less lonely in class because you actually connect with your teachers and classmates,” she said.

Alpern took advantage of all that McLean had to offer, especially in art and math. She loved hanging out in the art room, using the facilities
to dabble in all kinds of media. She experimented with a range of studio tools, as well as clay, pastels, colored pencils, and paint. For Alpern, who has been drawing since she “could pick up that marker” as a little kid, McLean’s Art Department provided countless opportunities for her to hone her skills.

Art wasn’t Alpern’s only talent. She also found that she had an aptitude for all things STEM. So as she did with art, Alpern lapped up every math class available at McLean.

“Math came very easily to me,” Alpern said. “It was a puzzle and I really enjoy puzzles and figuring out how things work.”

The more that she explored artistic and technical pursuits, the more they overlapped. Alpern discovered a synergy between art and math that would be a constant throughout her education. For her senior project, Alpern designed and assembled a wooden pendulum clock painted with ocean scenery — a culmination of her skills in engineering and art.

“I’m very proud of that,” Alpern said. “It combined everything I loved about my classes at McLean.”

She continued to merge her passions for both art and STEM at Alfred University, where she majored in mechanical engineering and earned a double minor in art and mathematics. There, Alpern took classes in computer-aided design alongside drawing and metal sculpture.

Alpern also participated in the robotics club and worked with a group of friends in an independent study to develop a robotics course. As her interest in robotics deepened, Alpern knew that she wanted a career in aerospace engineering.

She got closer to that goal during her senior year of college, when she snagged a coveted internship with NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The highlight of her time on the internship program was witnessing the last shuttle launch with human passengers on board.

“Little did I know at that time the projects I would be working on two years later would be on that shuttle launched into space,” she said.

Alpern interned for NASA again after graduating from Alfred University at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California before moving back to the East Coast to work as a contractor for the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She worked on a Robotic Refueling Mission, in which she and her team explored ways to refuel and repair satellites while in orbit. It was an experience that Alpern calls “the coolest thing I’ve ever worked on.”

She’s still doing impressive work in the aerospace engineering field, designing three instruments that interface with NASA satellites; two will be used
to monitor the Sun and the other will monitor the Earth’s atmosphere. Alpern will even be helping develop a new instrument from the beginning of the design process, something she has never done before.

Alpern has already secured her dream job working for NASA, but her possibilities are still wide open.

“There are so many projects within the science field and NASA that once one is finished you can go to another one,” she said.

There’s no telling where Alpern might go next, but it’s bound to be an exciting journey.