Elaine Petro

Elaine Petro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. She is pursuing research on a water-propelled plasma thruster in the Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory under Dr. Ray Sedwick. Elaine has been named an ARCS Scholar, National Science Foundation and Amelia Earhart fellow, and was recognized as one of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Twenty20s emerging leaders in aerospace in 2016. Petro is also a member of the UMD Clark School Future Faculty Program and was named “Best Teaching Assistant” by the UMD Aerospace Department and AIAA Student Chapter in 2013 and 2014.

Prior to graduate studies at UMD, Petro worked on the MAVEN Mars Orbiter and James Webb Space Telescope missions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Elaine has also had experience at the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the Planetary Science Summer School (PSSS) and as an intern with Lockheed Martin on the Hubble Space Telescope program. She currently serves as the President of the UMD Aerospace Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) and on the UMD Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics (WIAA) Executive Board as the VP of Community Development. Beyond academic life, Elaine enjoys spending time outdoors snowboarding, golfing, playing field hockey, and hiking with her beagle-mix dog.