While incomes her twin grasp’s levels in aeronautics and astronautics and public policy, Carissma McGee SM ’25 discovered to navigate between two seemingly distinct worlds, bridging rigorous technical evaluation and policy selections.
As an undergraduate congressional intern and researcher, she noticed a persistent hole in space policymaking. Policymakers usually lacked technical experience, whereas researchers have been hardly ever concerned in more and more advanced questions surrounding mental property and worldwide collaboration in space.
Her work on mental property frameworks for space collaborations straight addresses that hole, combining experience in gravitational microlensing and space telescope operations with policy evaluation to deal with rising governance challenges.
“I want to bring an expert level in science in the rooms where policy decisions are made,” says McGee, now a doctoral pupil in aeronautics and astronautics. “That perspective is critical for shaping the future of research and exploration.”
Likewise, she needs to convey her experience in public policy into the lab.
“I enjoy being able to ask questions about intellectual property, territorial claims, knowledge transfer, or allocation of resources early on in a research project,” provides McGee.
McGee’s fascination with space began throughout her highschool years in Delaware, when she first volunteered at an area observatory and then interned on the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Following highschool, McGee attended Howard University. She was chosen to take part within the Karsh STEM Scholars Program, a full-ride scholarship monitor for college students dedicated to working repeatedly towards incomes doctoral levels. Howard, which holds an R1 research classification from the Carnegie Foundation, is in shut proximity the Goddard Space Flight Center, in addition to the American Astronomical Society and the D.C. Space Grant Consortium.
In 2020, after her first yr at Howard, the Covid-19 pandemic despatched McGee again to her hometown in Delaware. As it turned out, that gave her a chance to work together with her native congresswoman, Lisa Blunt Rochester, then a U.S. consultant. In addition to supporting the congresswoman’s constituents, she drafted dozens of letters associated to STEM schooling and power reform.
Working in authorities gave McGee a chance to make use of her voice to “advocate for astronomy and astrophysics with the American Astronomical Society, advocate for space sciences, and for science representation.”
As an undergraduate, McGee additionally carried out research linking computational physics and astronomy, working with each NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Yale University’s Department of Astronomy. She additionally continued research begun in 2021 with the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ Black Hole Initiative, contributing to work related to the Event Horizon Telescope.
When she visited MIT in 2023, McGee was struck by the Institute’s openness to interdisciplinary work and help of her curiosity in combining aeronautics and astronautics with policy.
Once at MIT, she began working within the Space, Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation Laboratory (STAR Lab) with advisor Kerri Cahoy, professor of aeronautics and astronautics. McGee says she skilled an excessive amount of freedom to craft her personal program.
“I was drawn to the lab’s work on satellite missions and CubeSats, and excited to discover that I could pursue exoplanet astrophysics research within this framework and that submitting a dual thesis or focusing on astrophysics applications was possible,” says McGee. “When I expressed interest in participating in the Technology [and] Policy Program for a dual thesis in a framework for space policy, my advisors encouraged me to explore how we could integrate these diverse interests into a path forward.”
In 2024, McGee was awarded a MathWorks Fellowship to pursue research related to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and be a part of a NASA mission.
“It was just amazing to join the exoplanet group at NASA,” she says. “I had a front-row seat to see how real researchers and workers navigate complex problems.”
McGee credit MathWorks with serving to fellows to “be at the forefront of knowledge and shaping innovation.”
One of her proudest educational accomplishments is PyLIMASS, a software program system she developed with collaborators at Louisiana State University, the Ohio State University, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The software permits extra correct mass and distance estimates in gravitational microlensing occasions, serving to the Roman Space Telescope mission meet its precision objectives for learning exoplanets.
“To build software that didn’t previously exist — and to know it will be used for the Roman mission — is incredibly exciting,” McGee says.
In May 2025, McGee graduated with twin grasp’s levels in aeronautics and astronautics and know-how and policy. That identical month, she introduced her research on the American Astronomical Society assembly in Anchorage, Alaska, and on the Technology Management and Policy Conference in Portugal.
McGee remained at MIT to pursue her doctoral diploma. Last fall, as an MIT BAMIT Community Advancement Program and Fund Fellow, she hosted a daylong convention for STEM college students centered on how mental property frameworks form technical fields.
McGee’s accomplishments and contributions have been celebrated with a variety of honors lately. In 2026, she was named Miss Black Massachusetts United States, was acknowledged amongst MIT’s Graduate Students of Excellence, and acquired the MIT MLK Leadership Award in recognition of her service, integrity, and neighborhood impression.
Beyond her educational work, McGee is energetic throughout campus. She teaches Pilates with MIT Recreation, participates within the Graduate Women in Aerospace Engineering group, and serves as a graduate resident assistant in an undergraduate dorm on East Campus.
She credit the AeroAstro graduate neighborhood with conserving her momentum going.
“Even if we’re tired, there’s this powerful camaraderie among AeroAstro graduate students working together. Seeing my peers are pushing through similar research milestones and solve daunting problems motivates you to advance beyond the finish line to further developments in the field.”