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AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
STUDENT FINDS HER SPACE
Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Coral Springs, Florida, Ashley Tirado Pujols (’24, ’26) recently graduated with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with a concentration in Astronautics and a minor in Applied Mathematics.
Ashley Tirado Pujols has a long history of excellence. In 2021, Pujols was chosen as an Embry-Riddle representative in the NASA RASC-AL research competition, where she oversaw space operations. In 2023, she was named Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher in Fundamentals of Engineering by the College of Engineering, thanks to her hard work and accomplishments on and off campus. That same year, Pujols was named a NASA M-STAR (Minorities in Space Technology Artemis Research) Fellow and interned at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. Her research focused on finding ways to mitigate the effects of lunar dust on ceramic-coated materials used for the Artemis missions. “My time at NASA Langley was amazing. I had so much fun, trained a lot and made wonderful lifelong connections,” said Pujols. “I had two wonderful mentors and many
others who would drop anything to help me make my experiments work.” Pujols was recently chosen as one of five women to win a Women in Aerospace Foundation scholarship, which recognizes young women poised to become the next generation of leaders in the aerospace industry. In her free time, Pujols serves as a mentor for teens through ITWomen, a volunteer- based nonprofit that aims to increase the number of women in technology and engineering careers. “I want other young girls and women to know that they can do it and not to doubt themselves for even a second,” she said. “I hope to be someone who can represent them while being a role model.” Pujols is now pursuing her M.S. in Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle, with goals of eventually earning her doctorate degree and becoming a professor and mentor to others.
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