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Mechatronic Engineering graduate, Andrea Boyd is part of a team in Belgium that rotated the entire International Space Station for science objectives.

Driven by a desire to ‘understand the entire world’, 29-year-old Andrea has travelled, worked and studied in 50 countries across six continents and is currently helping to write the Space Mining roadmap – combining her two worlds of mining engineering and space. 

University degree details
B. Engineering (Mechatronic), 2009

Details of any scholarships received/awarded
Women in Engineering Protégé, 2006.

Prime Minister’s Australia Asia (Endeavour) Award 2008. A scholarship to study engineering at Yeungnam University in South Korea which specialises in robotics, mechanical and electrical engineering.

Best Innovation in Engineering and Best Overall Project 2008 Final Year Engineering awards for team projects.

How have these scholarships/awards helped you achieve your goals?
In Korea, I learnt how to live in Asia (I had already lived in Europe and Russia and US/Canada and travelled a lot to SE Asia) and now have this skill which is huge for the upcoming Asia Century.

I picked up decent Korean language skills and naturally progressed to being a cultural interface – something I was able to use while organising part of the biggest international space conference in the world held in Daejeon in 2009.

What were the best parts of your time at the University of ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø?
My classmates (still close friends and sometimes colleagues), the O-week building challenges in Mechanical Engineering (a trebuchet to launch water balloons at a lecturer ‘target’ was my favourite), the Final Year Project (even though it took over our lives for a whole year!) where we designed from scratch, manufactured and launched a supersonic ramjet from Woomera.

Did you take part in any extra-curricular activities?
I was a member of the Aerospace Club, AIAA and was on the Executive Committee from 2004-2008. We took part in paper competitions, excursions, Yuri’s night space parties, public events and careers nights.  The credibility it gives when interacting with senior professionals in the industry is invaluable and ended up being behind the success of our Ramjet project, with one of the parent AIAA members funding as major sponsor.

For fun I played basketball for the ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø University Griffins, joined the Evangelical Students group and the Maths Society, took part in Engineering Pub Crawls and sometimes tagged along to try out my friends’ clubs like Film, Gliding, and SCUBA Diving. I helped with the International Student Society and later also the United Nations’