Alena Wicker is a 12-year-old girl from Arizona who is determined to achieve her dreams of becoming an engineer at NASA. She will be attending Arizona State University this summer with the goal of landing a job at NASA by the age of 16. While this may seem like an impossible feat, Alena is not an ordinary youngster. She is a prodigy with exceptional intelligence that most of us can only dream of possessing.
Alena discovered her passion for engineering while playing with LEGOS. She is “kind of a nerd for the NASA-sized LEGOS,” she admitted. At four years old, Alena already had a crystal-clear vision of who she wanted to become. She told her mother, Daphne McQuarter, that she was going to work for NASA and go up there. She would point to the stars and had a gift for numbers, Legos, and science, so Daphne started nurturing her daughter’s gift.
Alena graduated from high school this year after acing all her homeschool classes. This summer, she will be walking down the halls of Arizona State University, where she will be double majoring in astronomical and planetary science and chemistry. Her goal is to build rovers like the one that landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, as part of the Perseverance mission.
Alena shares her journey through Facebook and Instagram, where she refers to herself as the “Brown STEM Girl.” She plans to launch a podcast and a website to inspire more girls to pursue their dreams. Her current website, called Brown Stem Girl, also accepts donations that will help send a girl of color to college.
“We aim to engage, empower and educate. It is our hope that girls are motivated to become all they desire to be in the world,” the website reads.
Alena is the type of person with a strong drive to achieve her goals. She is fearless, and she won’t let anything get in the way of her reaching her dreams. Alena is an inspiration to us all, regardless of our age or what we are planning to do. She encourages us to go for it, dream big, and then accomplish our goals.
Alena Wicker is a true inspiration, and we wish her all the best on her journey to college and beyond.