Sala Ba

  • Patti Grace Smith Fellow, Class of 2022

  • Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering, ‘24

  • Host Institution: Blue Origin

Sala is a sophomore studying Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. She grew up in Northern Virginia with her parents and older sister. In addition to being passionate about STEM, Sala loves cooking, exercising, and dancing. She speaks French and Spanish fluently and can hold a conversation in Japanese! Sala attended the Loudoun Academy of Science (Go Wolfe Pack!) and conducted an independent engineering research project where she designed, built, and tested a mechanism to improve vehicle safety in side-impact car collisions. At Stanford, Sala served as a coordinator for Lab 064, a community makerspace in the Electrical Engineering department. As a coordinator, Sala trains students on makerspace equipment, hosts workshops where attendees can learn to do things like design PCBs and put together 3D printers, and guides students on mechanical and electrical engineering projects by connecting them with resources in the department. Sala's favorite part of the job, however, is dancing to fun music at the workshops with her coworkers (in addition to helping people with the soldering irons, of course!) Sala's favorite thing to do as an engineering student is break down technical concepts and teach others in a fun and engaging way. She believes everyone is capable of understanding STEM topics and is passionate about taking the time to share any knowledge or skills that she comes across. Sala is the 2020 Cards Against Humanity Science Ambassador, meaning that she makes educational STEM videos for the public twice a year in exchange for a full-tuition scholarship. She plans to apply to the Mechanical Engineering co-terminal program at Stanford and earn her Master's in a fifth year of undergraduate study before moving on to the aerospace industry. After that, Sala would love to be a high school calculus teacher and work to eliminate barriers that underrepresented students face when entering STEM fields.

Fun Fact:

Sala used to write creatively and wrote a full-length novel, which now sits in the dark corners of her Google Drive.