Aerospace Engineering Alumnus Earns Isakowitz Fellowship

Feb. 3, 2022 - Samueli School alumnus Alessandro Verniani ’21 is one of 30 students to win a 2022 Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship, a summer internship and executive mentorship program developed to inspire the next generation of commercial spaceflight leaders.

The fellowship is sponsored by the Isakowitz family in memory of Matthew, a young engineer and entrepreneur with a passion for commercial space exploration. It includes a paid summer internship at a commercial spaceflight company, as well as a one-on-one pairing with an experienced space industry leader who serves as a mentor.

Verniani, who earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at UC Irvine last year, is currently a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He will spend three months at Virgin Galactic on the astronaut operations and spaceflight engineering team.

A first-generation college student, Verniani arrived at UCI as an undeclared major. Inspired by SpaceX’s efforts to commercialize human spaceflight, he changed his major to aerospace engineering and quickly got involved in the Samueli School’s hands-on engineering projects.

He spent one summer volunteering with the HyperXite team and helped manufacture, build and test UCI's pod for the fourth annual SpaceX Hyperloop Competition. “I learned a ton very quickly, and it was incredibly inspiring to work with a small team of students at SpaceX headquarters during competition week, where we met SpaceX engineers and other engineering students from around the world,” said Verniani.

He then went to the UCI Rocket Project, where he worked on the bipropellant propulsion system. He also joined UCI’s Spacecraft Thermal Management Systems, an undergraduate-led research lab, where he worked to develop a variable emittance device for cube satellites and became chief engineer. “Managing an interdisciplinary team gave me valuable leadership experience that helped me stand out to aerospace companies,” he said. “I made enduring friendships throughout all these senior design projects and now have friends working at space companies all over!” 

Verniani especially appreciated the guidance and mentorship he received from Edwin Peraza Hernandez, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. While working in Hernandez’s lab, Verniani conducted research on self-deploying origami structures. “We published a conference paper together, and he helped prepare me for rigorous research at a top graduate school. Now at CU Boulder, I'm applying what I learned at UCI to bioastronautics and human-centered spacecraft design, and my experiences with faculty and student engineering teams were instrumental.”

Verniani interned at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he applied his undergraduate research on self-deploying origami space structures to the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) project. He also completed internships at SpaceX, Northrop Grumman and Varda Space.

"I am really grateful for the support I received at UCI from attentive faculty and passionate students, and I hope to inspire other students to pursue aerospace,” said Verniani who is the second UCI engineering student to win a fellowship in the program’s five-year history. “It is a privilege to honor Matthew's passion for human spaceflight and to continue his legacy in commercial space."

– Lori Brandt