Over the years we’ve had team members come and go. Here’s an update as to where some of them are now!
Maranda Cherry, Engineering Physics class of 2022, was the inspiration behind our school taking on First Nations Launch. Our advisor knew that as a Freshman, Maranda was already heavily involved with the Queen’s Rocket Engineering Team and hoped for a career in the aerospace industry. As such, she was approached with the idea of leading a team for First Nations Launch, if NASA would allow Canadians to join. Maranda accepted, and so did NASA, and history was made! Maranda is a citizen of the Métis Nation of BC, and was the Team Lead for Q-AISES Rocket Team in the 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons. She is currently a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in their Aero-Astro department, and helped get an FNL team started there too!
Jeff McCaw, Electrical Engineering Class of 2022, was a member of the team in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He took on roles in Recovery and Payload Design, in addition to Avionics. He most famously found a black powder supplier for us to test our recovery system in the middle of a pandemic! Jeff is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario, and currently lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where he works as an engineer-in-training. His employer, Nutrien, became an Apogee sponsor of our team in 2023.
John Sekijoba, Mechanical Engineering class of 2021, joined our team after an invite went out to students from the Queen’s NSBE chapter. Melanie is an Advisor to both AISES and NSBE at Queen’s, and so when it became known to us that non-Indigenous students could join the team, we decided that we should open up the opportunity to other equity-deserving students in engineering. John’s experience and talents came to good use during the building phase of our 2021 rocket, and his positive energy joined us on the road to Wisconsin in 2022! While John is not Indigenous to North America, he is a tribal person of the Buganda Kingdom in Uganda, and proudly represented his heritage at the banquet wearing a traditional kanzu. John has gone on to a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Queen’s, and graduates in 2023.