Wendy A. Okolo is a Nigerian-American aerospace research engineer in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center.[1] She is the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas at Arlington.[2] She is also the Special Emphasis Programs Manager for Women at Ames.[3]
Okolo obtained her secondary education at Queen's College, an all-girls school in Lagos, Nigeria. She then received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2010. Okolo later became the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UTA in 2015 at age 26.[2] Her Ph.D. studies were supervised by Atilla Dogan.[4] During Okolo's undergraduate years, she served as president of the Society of Women Engineers at the university.[5]
Okolo started her career as an undergraduate intern for Lockheed Martin, working on NASA's Orion spacecraft.[3] Over the course of two summers, she interned with the Requirements Management Office in Systems Engineering and the Hatch Mechanisms team in Mechanical Engineering.[3] As a graduate student, Okolo later worked in the Control Design & Analysis Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.[6]
Okolo is a Sub-Project Manager in the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA Ames.[7] She is a research engineer in the Discovery and Systems Health Technology (DaSH)[8]
Okolo says her sisters taught her the sciences with their day-to-day realities. She describes them as her heroes.[7][9]