MAE Undergrad selected for Patti Grace Smith Fellowship

Max Starr, a second-year student at Ohio State with the intent to major in mechanical engineering, has been selected for the prestigious Patti Grace Smith Fellowship.

The award-winning program connects the nation’s leading aerospace companies with talented Black students. As part of the program’s rigorous selection process, each member of the program’s Class of 2022 has earned a challenging summer internship in the aerospace field, in addition to receiving a scholarship worth thousands of dollars, a pair of personalized mentors, and more.

“We are delighted to welcome this extraordinary group of talented students into our Fellowship and into our industry,” said Col. B. Alvin Drew, Jr., (USAF, Ret.), a two-time Space Shuttle astronaut and a co-founder of the Fellowship. “As they build on the strong foundation built by our Class of 2021 and as they blaze new trails of their own, these students are doing more than just the important work of starting their own impressive careers. They are bringing a much needed influx of talent, creativity, and commitment to our field.”

Starr, a native of Cincinnati, is the only fellow interning with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative over the summer and will complete the fellowship attending a summit held for the Class of 2022 fellows.

“Receiving acceptance into this fellowship is truly at the top of my most proud achievements,” Starr said. “Motivated by my deep passion for Aerospace engineering and my engineering missions associated with it, I put my all into the application.”

His research interests focus on unique applications of magnetic locking via eddy currents and mechanically alternating magnetic fields, which he may be able to work on with self-assembling space architecture in his internship. Starr may also be able to work on his interests in individual technologies that amplify or increase the human body’s natural abilities, from advanced bionics that may allow the disabled access to space travel/life to specialized space suits with individual flight systems and simulated gravity. Starr has also become interested in designing meta-assets, or objects for the Metaverse, as NFTs with a focus on products only possible in a virtual world.

Starr heard about the fellowship from an upperclassman on LinkedIn.

“I discovered this opportunity last year as a freshman thanks to Jacob Auvil, an upperclassman in my Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) program but had missed the application deadline due to some challenges I faced during the Covid-season,” Starr said. “I thus spent a lot of effort and focus to make sure that didn’t happen again since sophomore year would be the last time I could apply.”

Starr saw the application as a good metric to measure where he is at and is heading in his career goals.

“I felt the application and all of its components were a good test and medium for me to showcase my skills and achievements, and to express my core career goals, which served as much needed reminder to stay strong through my personal challenges," Starr said.

The Patti Grace Smith fellowship was established in 2020 and is a project of the Brooke Owens Fellowship. The award was named after Patti Grace Smith, a pioneer and leader in the aerospace industry. Smith was one of the students who integrated public schools in Alabama during the civil rights movement and went on to serve as the head of the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The program was established to address the disparity in the low percentage of Black workers and executives in the U.S. aerospace and defense fields.

Starr is the second Ohio State student to be selected as part of the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship class. Aerospace engineering student Nehemiah Key was a member of the inaugural 2021 class of fellows.

Learn more about the program and view the entire 2022 class of fellows at pgsfellowship.org