Lainey Drake

age:20

Ever since she was young, Lainey Drake has been fascinated with learning about the world around her, especially when it came to space.

She grew up staring at the stars, reading science fiction and learning about NASA. Then in high school, the world opened up for Lainey as she was introduced to physics.

“It all stemmed from a basic love of space,” said Lainey. “I always wanted to know more, and math was definitely my best subject in school. When I got into physics, I learned you could use math and different types of physics to learn more about the world around you.”

Now, she is 20 years old and starting the second semester of her junior year at Wake Forest University, double-majoring in physics and theater.

In 2020, she was accepted into the Brooke Owens Fellowship. Out of 566 applicants from 290 universities and 15 countries, Lainey was then one of 40 to be accepted. This fellowship provides internships for young women and other gender minorities in the aerospace industry. She did an internship at Virgin Galactic in Las Cruces, N.M., in the engineering department. Unfortunately, due to COVID19, she had to attend the internship virtually.

This summer, she is staying in the Virgin family and has a paid internship at Virgin Orbit in Long Beach, Calif. Lainey will be working with system engineers and doing other tasks that are very similar to her internship last year. Along with the coding, she will be in person to get the hands-on experience of working on hardware.

“I want to do avionics,” said Lainey. “I’m working off of one experience I had and loved it. I am just here for the ride because I know I don’t know enough to decide right now, but that’s enough.”

After graduation, Lainey hopes to move to Southern California, a huge driver of space with big and small space companies, to work full-time in the aerospace field.

“I enjoy learning about everything around me,” said Lainey. “The universe is so vast, so I will always be learning and figuring stuff out for the rest of my life, and that excites me.”

— Rachel W artian

What is your favorite dessert? Tiramisu

What is your favorite play? “Baltimore Waltz” by Paula Voge