This 22-Year-Old MIT Student Is Making History As A NASA Engineer

A 22-year-old black woman is serving as an engineer for NASA.

Tiera Guinn is currently a Rocket Structural Design and Analysis Engineer for the Space Launch System that aerospace company Boeing is building for NASA. She is also still in college at MIT and is expected to graduate with a 5.0 GPA.

"I'm designing for the largest, most powerful rocket ever in history," Guinn said in an interview with WBRC. "I design components for the rocket itself, and I analyze them and make sure that they're structurally sound, which means that they don't break or they don't deform."

The origin of Guinn's interest in becoming an engineer started as a child, when her mother had her clip coupons that they used at the grocery store. Before getting to the cash register Guinn already had to calculate the total (including tax) of the groceries. This, along with the realization that she wanted to design planes at a young age, led to her becoming an engineer.

The news is timely, considering the recent release of Hidden Figures, which celebrates the contributions made by black women in NASA during the Space Race of the 1950s.

Guinn is not the only 22-year-old black woman making history (read: herstory) in America.

Myya D. Jones, who is currently a Michigan State University senior, made an announcement a couple weeks back that she was running for mayor of Detroit.

"While I was interning in Congress, I knew [politics] was something I wanted to do," Jones said in an interview with the Detroit Metro Times. "I want to give the voiceless a voice."

"I have lots of plans for the neighborhoods," Jones added. "I want people to be able to walk down the street and go to the park. I want to clean up our streets and make sure we have block clubs and neighborhood clubs. I want to make sure people feel a responsibility to their neighborhood. Right now those things aren’t happening."