From the Kimberley to California: WA student selected for NASA program

Growing up in WA’s Kimberley region and looking up at the stars, Alaxandrea O’Brien’s interest in space started from a young age.

Throughout her young life, the proud Dulgubarra-Mamu and Jirrbal woman has moved from living on country in the region to the beaches of Broome, to completing her school education in Kalgoorlie’s Goldfields to studying at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

Throughout her long early travels, the night sky has been a constant in an ever-changing world and now the young student gets to live a dream of studying alongside mentors at NASA in California.

O’Brien is the first student from a WA university to be selected for Monash’s pioneering National Indigenous Space Academy program.

She is among eight First Nations tertiary students heading to the United States and United Kingdom for a 10-week placement at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

O’Brien said she grew up loving all things space and the stars.

“It’s this wonderful place that you can’t easily get to, and it just bewilders and amazes any child growing up,” she said.

“I think it comes back to when I first looked through a telescope in Broome, and I looked at my first planet, and I got to see Saturn’s rings at a very, very young age.

“From there, I’ve just gone into a world of STEM and space, and it’s kind of followed me throughout my life. Even though I’m doing an environmental engineering degree, I did not think it was something that was applicable to NASA, but here we are.”

While at the camp, the students will work on real-life projects developed by their mentors and contribute to current space missions, including work involving ocean exploration vehicles and research into microorganisms aboard the International Space Station.

O’Brien is not a new visitor to the US, having made the trip over the Pacific as a teenager.

“I was here once before when I was about 13 or 14, and actually went to the Kennedy Space Center, and I got to look at the old rocket ships in the museums and learn about the Deep Space Network,” she said.

“I’ve been to Canberra looking at our big space dish, and never did I think that one day I would be working at the place where it all began.”

In preparation for their journey, each student underwent a Space Boot Camp at Monash, covering areas including aerodynamics, robotics, rovers, astrophysics, planetary science, engineering, computer science and earth sciences, as well as past and current NASA and RAL Space missions.

Professor Chris Lawrence, director of NISA at Monash University, said the scholarship would have a transformative impact.

“NISA provides Indigenous STEM university students the unique opportunity to study and learn at two of the world’s leading space research facilities, RAL Space in the UK and NASA/JPL in the US,” Lawrence said.

“Students work in teams on real life space missions and contribute to space exploration and search for other planets, solar systems and the ultimate search for other life existence in the galaxies. NISA is a life changing program for the next generation of space explorers.”

O’Brien said growing up in the Kimberley had a major impact on her interest in space and constellations, which fascinated her from an early age.

“There is no clear sky like our regional places in Australia,” she said.

“It is definitely something I miss being in Perth because the way you can see the Milky Way is very different, and even just our other phenomena, like Staircase to the Moon.

“Those were normal things on my doorstep that I was surrounded around, so it is kind of that starting point.

“I’m very much a Kimberley girl. I grew up there for about 11 years before I moved to Kalgoorlie, where I finished my high school education.

“So I went from beach country to desert country to city country, and here we are in space country.”

During her 10-week research placement O’Brien will work under technical professionals at NASA/JPL on a project working with satellite data to map and understand water dynamics as well as environmental interactions and interfaces.

One of the key issues she is keen to address with her experience is access to clean drinkable water in remote communities.

“You look at the Goldfields and we still pump our water from the basin in Perth,” she said.

“And whilst that is an amazing engineering feat, it is not sustainable long term when our own groundwater systems are currently draining, and we’re having to build desalination plants just to support the city alone.

“If we’re struggling to support our urban areas, how are we ever going to support our regional remote areas where health outcomes are directly impacted by what you consume on a daily basis?

“It is crucial to just all Australians. When you think about it, we need water.”

O’Brien is hoping to use the experience to further her own studies at UWA where she has been taking an environmental engineering course.

“So when I get back, I actually get to complete and start my honours thesis project through my bachelor’s degree,” she said.

“What I’m looking to do is look at the integration of Indigenous knowledge and environmental engineering, essentially, and to be able to come back with an additional skill set under my belt and have research experience at a world-renowned institution.

“My end goal for my career, once I’ve built up my expertise, is to 100 per cent pour back into all of the communities that have built me.”

Those communities include far north Queensland, where she has ancestral ties, in addition to her time spent in the Kimberley and the Goldfields regions, where she has a key piece of advice to pass on her experience to the next generation.

“I think to keep asking the questions because if they’re already curious, if they already have a love for everything that’s around them, and they want to know more, just to never stop asking questions,” she said.

“That’s the biggest advice I could give to any young person is to always ask the question, even if you think it’s silly, or even if you think someone else has asked it before. I think if people ask more questions, the world would be a better place.”