MSU SpaceTrek continues to empower female students
This summer, Morehead State hosted female high school students from across the Commonwealth for a unique educational experience during the annual SpaceTrek program.
Created in 2011, SpaceTrek is a residential summer program in space systems engineering for young women entering 9th-12th grade or entering college as a first-year student.
This program introduces pre-college students to higher education opportunities and careers in aerospace while providing an immersive experience in aerospace subdisciplines like electronics, telecommunications, data analysis, and other elements of space missions.
"The benefit of SpaceTrek is that it helps develop within the girl the confidence to pursue these degree programs, the resilience to complete them, and the motivation to successful transition into a high-tech workforce such as aerospace engineering," said Jennifer Carter (Class of 2002, 2008, 2010), director of the Center for STEM+eXcellence at MSU. "The benefit to the region is a population of young, trained professionals who can fulfill the economic demand of a high-tech workforce."
Dr. Ben Malphrus, executive director of MSU's Space Science Center, said SpaceTrek has also served as a valuable recruiting tool for MSU.
"SpaceTrek is a phenomenal program and our most important student recruitment activity for the Space Science Center at Morehead State University," Malphrus said. "We have a mandate to produce excellent graduates for the aerospace and defense industries, and SpaceTrek is the beginning of that pipeline."
One SpaceTrek participant who transitioned to MSU as a student and later an employee is Chloe Hart (Class of 2020, 2024). Originally from Ashland, Hart is the lead ground operator/engineer at Morehead State and attended SpaceTrek in 2015. She also serves as an instructor in the SpaceTrek program.
"I'm absolutely honored to have the opportunity to be an instructor and impact the lives of these girls through this program that impacted me so much," Hart said.
During this year's SpaceTrek at MSU, Kentucky First Lady Britainy Beshear visited SpaceTrek students and toured the Space Science Center on Wednesday, June 13. She also examined a CubeSat created by MSU space science faculty and students, helped distribute special SpaceTrek toolboxes to program participants and helped launch a smaller CubeSat created by SpaceTrek students into the atmosphere.
When addressing a classroom of students, Beshear said this program provides valuable skills and will benefit students whether they decide to pursue STEM-related fields or other career paths.
"The fact that you're here...even if this isn't what you ultimately go into, the skills that you're learning are going to take you wherever you want to go," she said. "I really do believe that your generation is going to change the world, and you're going to change it for the better."
Learn about SpaceTrek by contacting the Center for STEM+eXcellence at stemxcenter@moreheadstate.edu or 606-783-2300 or visiting www.moreheadstate.edu/spacetrek.
Photo: First Lady Britainy Beshear (far left) spoke to students at the SpaceTrek program at Morehead State University's Space Science Center.
