Madeleine Bardy on track to be first female student to graduate from Berkeley with degree in aerospace engineering
Adelaide teenager Madeleine Bardy has been inspired by space all her life – and now she’s reaching for the stars, literally.
Rocket woman Madeleine Bardy is reaching for the stars – literally.
The Norwood teenager is on track to be the first female student to graduate from the prestigious University of California at Berkeley with a degree in aerospace engineering this year.
Aged 19, she was part of a team that won a $US15,000 rocket engine control challenge – moving it around while it was firing at a test site in the Mojave Desert, US.
Ms Bardy is participating in groundbreaking NASA research into microgravity combustion processes.
She is president of Space Enterprise at Berkeley, a student team building innovative liquid-fuelled rockets. It is all part of ambitious dreams to work as an aerospace engineer on projects aimed at taking humans to Mars, and perhaps to go into space herself one day.
Ms Bardy graduated from Walford Anglican School for Girls in 2021 and did the International Baccalaureate (IB diploma) for its rigorous high standards, with plans to study overseas. She credits strong mentors for helping her, such as teachers Leeanne Brook, Maria Caruso and Deborah Woodard-Knight, who “all played enormous roles in my schooling acceleration and development”.
Her parents Eric and Michele – a chemical engineer – also have been strong role models as well as supporters.
“I never questioned my ability to enter such a male-dominated field. I love my work for two main reasons. One is I constantly need to feel challenged in most aspects of my life and I feel aerospace is a truly challenging field and represents the cutting edge of technology, innovation and science.
“I also just love space and have loved space since I was little, it seems magical and vast and that’s always been attractive to me and piqued my curiosity.
“I’m lucky enough to be an undergraduate researcher at the UC Berkeley Fire Research Lab and am actively working on a number of NASA projects investigating microgravity combustion and the flammability of materials in space exploration atmospheres.
“Long-term, my dream is to work on human spaceflight projects, most likely in the private sector, who knows which companies will be involved in the development of Mars mission hardware or commercial space stations?”
Ms Bardy’s career trajectory is looking skywards. “I’d love to go to space one day, no doubt about it,” she said.
“If I had the opportunity to be a professional astronaut and take on an operational and research role in space that would be even better.”
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Originally published as Madeleine Bardy on track to be first female student to graduate from Berkeley with degree in aerospace engineering
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