Mishaal Ashemimry is an aerospace engineer and pilot who, after working for major aerospace organizations, formed her own aerospace startup to design rockets for small, low-Earth orbit satellites. As a Saudi American, she got interested in the stars when she was young, looking up at the sky while visiting Saudi Arabia. She describes many parts of her path in this career, including love of math, starting a business, being recognized as the first female aerospace engineer in the Gulf Cooperation Council, and her role as an Arabic-speaking STEM education social media influencer.

Related to this episode:
• Mishaal Ashemimry’s profile: https://www.mishaalashemimry.com/
• Encarta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta
• Zinc and hydrochloric acid reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4XITC225uk
• BattleBots TV series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleBots
• FIRST Robotics Competition: https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc
• NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/home/index.html
• Raytheon Technologies: https://www.rtx.com/en
• NERVA program on nuclear rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
• MISHAAL Aerospace: https://www.mishaalaerospace.com/home
• SBIR funding: https://www.sbir.gov/
• Article on Wired, SpaceX Engine Failure Claims Experimental Satellite: https://www.wired.com/2012/10/spacex-nasa-investigation/
• DOF (degree of freedom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_freedom_(statistics)
• Mishaal’s YouTube channel on STEM, largely in Arabic: https://www.youtube.com/c/MishaalAshemimry

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