Department of Aerospace Engineering alumna Aisha Bowe wins 2020 Outstanding Recent Alumna award
Distinguished Department of Aerospace Engineering alumna is honored by the Michigan Engineering Alumni Board.
The Department of Aerospace Engineering is proud to announce that Aisha Bowe, BSE ’08 and MS ’09, has been named 2020 Outstanding Recent Alumna. She is one of the department alumni who have swept two of the three CoE Alumni Awards for 2020 given by the Michigan Engineering Alumni Board, the dean, and faculty members honoring alumni who are 35 years old or younger who have contributed substantially to their field within ten years of graduation.
Bowe’s is a prominent research and industry leader thanks to her previous position at NASA Ames Research Center in AST Flight and Fluid Mechanics and as the founder and CEO of STEMBoard, a technology solutions company that deals with technology problems for the government and the private-sector, as well as supporting African American women in the STEM field through STEM camps, partnerships with historically black colleges and universities and providing career opportunities for young people.
Nationally and internationally known for her commitment to empowering minority youth in the STEM field, Bowe’s career has been marked by her work ethic, persistence, and reputation as a hard-charging leader with strong communications skills. Despite struggling with some of her classes after transferring to UMich Aerospace Engineering from community college, she soon excelled and in 2009, earned her Master’s Degree in Space Systems Engineering. She often uses her story to inspire students to succeed regardless of obstacles ahead of them.
Since then, Bowe has distinguished herself as part of the team at the Aviation Systems Division with the Aeronautics Directorate at NASA’s Ames Research Center, winning multiple NASA awards for her contributions to both engineering and equal employment opportunities. She is the Founder and CEO of STEMBoard, a tech company that specializes in utilizing big data to create smart systems and software solutions for clients across the public and private sectors.
Other awards given to Bowe include the 2012 Outstanding Technical Contribution and 21st Century Trailblazer in Aerodynamics and Aviation by the National Society of Black Engineers, 2013 Special Recognition by the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, and 2014 Woman of the Year in Technology by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Inc.
Recently, Bowe was instrumental in the launch by STEMBoard of LINGO, a new hands-on, self-paced coding kit that empowers students to build at home. The kit exposes students from junior high to college sophomores to the fundamentals of hardware and software design while an expert provides easy to follow video instructions.
Past award recipients of the CoE Alumni Awards include Kelley Elahi-Maynard, who is an Engineer and Nurse at Lurie Children’s Hospital; Katherine Avery, Ph.D. of the Additive Manufacturing Plastics and Polymers Systems Team Lead at Ford; Dr. Geoffrey West, who is President and Chief Medical Physicist at West Physics; and Kristine Madden, a nuclear engineering alum who is an officer at the IAEA in Vienna.
