Ashley Sawa

Ashley Sawa is a senior studying Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Computer Science.

Ashley has been in leadership for the Illinois Space Society’s Spaceshot team for all four
years of her undergraduate degree, currently serving has Spaceshot’s Team Lead.
Spaceshot is a team of over 200 students with the goal of building a rocket to reach the
Kármán Line, the legal edge of space. Ashley also works in the Aerospace Machine Shop
as an apprentice and student shop manager, helping pioneer the department’s new
machining course and working to get more students involved in machining. Ashley has
also been involved in the Grainger First Year Experience program as an Engineering
Learning Assistant (ELA) for two years, mentoring nearly 50 students.
Professionally, Ashley has completed two internships at SpaceX: first on the Dragon
Build Reliability Engineering Team specializing in Structures & Thermal Protection
Systems and second on the Raptor Build Reliability Engineering Team specializing in Avionics & Machining.

After graduation, Ashley will return to SpaceX full-time in California to work as a Build
Reliability Engineer on the Raptor Team, helping develop the rocket engine that will
deliver humans beyond Earth. She is extremely grateful to her family, friends, and
mentors that have supported her throughout her time at Illinois.