Pauline Xu

Pauline Xu is a high school junior who lives in the northernmost state of the U.S., where temperatures drop below -50 degrees, moose visit neighborhoods, and auroras appear every winter night—Alaska! She is part of Fairbanks B.E.S.T Homeschool, Lathrop High School, and the University of Fairbanks Alaska’s NASA Space Grant Program. As predicted, her main interests lie in aerospace engineering, though she loves animals and nature, working with bank swallows and salmon in the summers. From a young age, Pauline had a fascination towards “engineering” - a certain ability to merge the right pieces together in order to solve problems and produce wonders, whether it be forming reusable rockets, towering skyscrapers, or even trying to fix her family car’s rundown engine. After working in the Fairbanks NASA Space Grant lab, she realized the prominence of the aero/astro-engineering field and became intrigued with the increasingly probable idea of space habitation. Thus, while tinkering on voltage suppliers, satellite circuit boards, or even a conductive plastic Faraday cup, her gaze is toward the vast expansion of constellations, stars, and planets in the universe, where she believes will be inhabited soon.