Voyager has two new team members: Abigail (Abby) Harrison and Ryann Hee. Abby and Ryann will be joining Voyager for the summer through the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program.
The Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program is a non-profit organization honoring the memory of an engineer, entrepreneur, and extraordinary individual whose passion for commercial space exploration led to great strides in the industry and inspired all who knew him. It seeks to instill that same enthusiasm into the next generation by providing impactful career training to those who embody Matthew’s drive for exploring our universe to help better humankind, and we are thrilled to have Abby and Ryann contribute to both Voyager and the broader commercial space industry this summer.
Meet Abby:
Abby Harrison is a graduate student at Queen’s University studying Arctic region geochemistry as a member of the Facility for Biogeochemical Research on Environmental Change and the Cryosphere (FaBRECC) lab. Previously she has conducted immunology research at Harvard Medical School, astrobiology research at the Space Life Sciences Labs, machine learning research at Wellesley College, and limnology research at Lake Baikal, Siberia.
Abby has had a passion for space exploration her entire life. At 15, Abby served as the Earth Liaison for European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. She then went on to found and lead The Mars Generation non-profit for 8 years.
Abby’s favorite space projects have always involved humans. “We, as humans, are so fragile and yet have been able to accomplish so much in space exploration despite the serious danger and difficulty of space. I think that each and every crewed mission is a testament to the human spirit. It’s our desire to explore, discover, and constantly improve that ties us together,” she said. Abby strongly believes commercial space is the future and is looking forward to learning more about the industry during her time at Voyager.
Abby is working toward becoming a NASA astronaut and is trained as a pilot, rescue SCUBA diver and Emergency Medical Technician. In her free time, she creates educational videos and content on social media (where she is known as Astronaut Abby) to excite more people about space and science.
Meet Ryann:
Ryann Hee is an Aeronautics and Astronautics graduate student in the Human Systems Lab (HSL) at MIT. She has been selected as a Draper Scholar and a former Cal-Bridge Scholar. Her research projects have included small-scale power conversion technology for space-based applications, virtual reality applications in zero gravity, navigation for autonomous underwater vehicles, and low temperature physics.
Ryann is also a member of MIT’s First Nations Launch rocket team and an Emergency Medical Technician with MIT EMS. Ryann enjoys hiking, soccer, and just about anything outdoors.
Ryann is passionate about expanding access to space and believes the advancement of technologies facilitating space in-situ resource utilization will set the pace for how quickly we transform humanity’s presence beyond Earth.
From Ryann: “My passion lies in ensuring that space exploration remains a universal benefit. Space is inspiring in so many ways, yet what makes it remarkable to me is its ability to foster interconnectedness, bridging gaps between generations, cultures, and nations. I think commercial space is a place of unbound potential that can truly showcase collaborative efforts and technological advancements in ways that will not only transform access to space, but shape the future.”
