Aerospace Engineer and Entrepreneur
Who is Aisha Bowe?
By the age of 35, Aisha Bowe had climbed Mount Kilmanjaro, founded a start-up tech company, and worked as an aerospace engineer for NASA. The United States Women’s Chamber of Commerce called her an “emerging star” but… where did she start?
Actually, she started as an Ann Arbor kid whose academic performance landed her in the meeting with a guidance counselor at Pioneer High School. “You should pursue cosmetology!” The counselor had suggested. She might have, but Bowe’s father was a Bahamian who paid for his own engineering degree by driving other people around in a taxi. He encouraged her to imagine something more for herself.
So she did! She earned an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s degree in space systems engineering at the University of Michigan, worked for NASA for a few years afterwards, and then launched STEMBoard! STEMBoard is a technology company that collaborates with historically Black universities and colleges to expose more students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. You guessed it, STEM! Her latest project, Lingo, is an at-home coding kit for students.
Now, Boe works to encourage other young women and people of color to join a field you often don’t see them in. “When I was younger, I never saw women — let alone women of color — in technical careers. For me now, every day, I wake up and I can look on Instagram, or I can turn on a channel on TV, and I can see women and minorities represented in the STEM field. That alone represents progress.”
3 Things We Love About Aisha Bowe:
- Aisha is a huge fan of beauty and fashion!
- She donates a lot of her time to mentorship for the University of Michigan College of Engineering!
- She urges others not to place limitations on the boundaries of someone’s future based on what you see solely before you on paper!
Work Cited
STEMBoard Founder Aisha Bowe on Diversity, NASA, & Her Michigan Ties