WA student's journey from Kimberley stars to NASA research placement

Alaxandrea O'Brien grew up in Western Australia's Kimberley region, where the night sky was constant company through a childhood of movement—from remote country to the beaches of Broome, then inland to Kalgoorlie for high school, and finally to Perth for university. The stars were always there, a fixed point in an otherwise shifting world. Now, at the University of Western Australia, she has been selected for a 10-week research placement at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, becoming the first student from a WA university chosen for Monash's National Indigenous Space Academy program.

O'Brien is one of eight First Nations tertiary students heading to the United States and United Kingdom through the pioneering initiative. The program sends students to two of the world's leading space research facilities—NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and RAL Space in the UK—where they work on real projects alongside mentors and contribute directly to active space missions. Before departure, each student completed a Space Boot Camp at Monash covering aerodynamics, robotics, planetary science, computer science, and the history of NASA missions. Professor Chris Lawrence, director of the National Indigenous Space Academy at Monash, describes it as transformative work: students engage in genuine space exploration research, contributing to missions that search for other planets, solar systems, and ultimately, other life in the galaxies.

O'Brien's fascination with space began early. She remembers looking through a telescope in Broome as a young teenager and seeing Saturn's rings for the first time—a moment that opened a world of STEM and space that has followed her ever since. She had visited the Kennedy Space Center as a 13 or 14-year-old, walking through museums of old rockets and learning about the Deep Space Network. She has stood beneath Australia's own space dish in Canberra. Now she will work at the place where it all began. The Kimberley's clear skies shaped her sense of wonder. She speaks of the Milky Way visible from her doorstep, of the Staircase to the Moon phenomenon—ordinary marvels of regional Australia that Perth's city lights have taken from her. "There is no clear sky like our regional places in Australia," she said.

During her 10-week placement, O'Brien will work with satellite data to map and understand water dynamics and environmental interactions. This is not abstract research for her. She is focused on a concrete problem: access to clean drinking water in remote communities. The Goldfields, where she completed her schooling, still pump water from basins in Perth—an engineering achievement, but not sustainable. Groundwater systems are draining. Desalination plants are being built just to support the city. If urban areas struggle to secure water, how can remote regions, where health outcomes depend directly on daily water consumption, ever be supported? "It is crucial to just all Australians," she said. "When you think about it, we need water."

O'Brien is a proud Dulgubarra-Mamu and Jirrbal woman with ancestral ties to far north Queensland in addition to her years in the Kimberley and Goldfields. When she returns from California, she will complete her honours thesis at UWA, integrating Indigenous knowledge with environmental engineering—bringing back not only research experience from a world-renowned institution but a new skill set shaped by her time at NASA. Her long-term goal is clear: to pour her expertise back into the communities that built her. To young people considering their own paths, she offers one piece of advice: keep asking questions. "If they're already curious, if they already have a love for everything that's around them, and they want to know more, just to never stop asking questions," she said. "That's the biggest advice I could give to any young person is to always ask the question, even if you think it's silly."