The Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship is a non-profit program in the United States that provides paid internships and executive mentorship to exceptional undergraduate and graduate students seeking careers in commercial space. The fellowship was created in memory of Matthew Isakowitz, an American aerospace engineer and early contributor to the field of commercial spaceflight who died at the age of 29.
Motivation and overview
The Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program seeks to connect exceptional students with the resources to become leaders in the commercial space industry, with the goal of instilling inspiration for commercial spaceflight into the next generation. Matthew Isakowitz was an aerospace engineer from Princeton University who worked at XPRIZE, SpaceX, and Astranis, and served as associate director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. He also worked on the New Horizons mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, for which the minor planet 78867 Isakowitz was named. The fellowship was founded by Isakowitz's family, including his father Steve Isakowitz, and former colleague Sirisha Bandla in 2017.
The program offers students paid summer internships at commercial space companies (including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, etc.), travel stipends, and mentorship from notable aerospace leaders, including CEOs (e.g. Tom Mueller, George Whitesides, Mandy Vaughn), 10 astronauts (e.g. John M. Grunsfeld, Cadey Coleman, Sandy Magnus), former NASA administrators, JPL directors, and other experienced executives. Fellows are also paired with previous alumni, who act as peer mentors, and are flown out to the annual summit in Los Angeles, California to network, tour aerospace companies, and to meet industry leaders such as Elon Musk and Buzz Aldrin.
As of 2023, the fellowship program is partnered with the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and the Future Space Leaders Foundation.
Alumni
As of 2022, the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship has 169 alumni across six cohorts associated with 100+ different universities internationally. The program has become increasingly competitive, and nearly half of all fellows are associated with MIT, Stanford, or Georgia Tech alone.
Each year, hundreds of students from around the United States apply. Approximately thirty are selected through an evaluation of merit, passion for commercial spaceflight, and the perceived embodiment of Isakowitz's qualities. This is done primarily by means of interviews and essay responses, with academic achievement and prior work in industry also weighted. Finalists are matched with host companies, who independently conduct interviews and award offers.