Student Spotlight: Daniella Bernal

Photo courtesy of Daniella Bernal

Laura Gonzalez // Entertainment Director

Being a college student is hard, no doubt about that. Balancing an education with a job or internship, a social life and however many hobbies are on the side is no easy feat and usually, one section has to suffer. Yet, for 18 year old junior mechanical engineering major Daniella Bernal, this is all in a day’s work.

Bernal, who entered FIU at the age of 16 with a Presidential Scholarship, has been working hard to gain her education in mechanical and aerospace engineering so she can achieve her dream of working for SpaceX to make sustainable propulsion rockets to send into space.

“A couple of months before I started as a freshman at FIU, I took a family vacation to the Kennedy Space Center and I saw the rockets there. I saw a Saturn 5 rocket just sitting there and it just completely blew my mind,” Bernal said. “That’s when I knew I had to do something with space. I didn’t know what, but something.”

Aside from being a 4.0 GPA student, Bernal is also a founding member of the Aerospace Engineering club at FIU which went to a model rocketry competition in 2015 and won sixth place out of 75 teams and second place nationally, as well as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

“Right now my involvements in school are the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and under that branch we have a NASA student launch competition team called Pantherworks and this year I was elected team captain. In that competition we get the whole engineering experience,” Bernal said. “It involves designing a rocket as well as an autonomous system to insert a payload into the rocket and the whole purpose is to try to innovate something great for future Mars missions. This year on our team we have a great collaboration between mechanical engineering, computer engineering and electrical engineering, we’re really branching out this year.”

The essence behind Bernal’s motivation to excel in school and extracurriculars that benefit her burgeoning career comes from her desire to be a part of something great in the future of space exploration.

“I think it’s the idea of being a part of something that is so vast,” Bernal said. “The reason why I want to do aerospace engineering, the reason I want to do propulsion specifically, is because space is so incredible. It’s a field that we don’t know much about. To think that you can play a part in making that discovery, that someday there might be a colony on Mars and you can say ‘Oh, that engine was mine, I made that,’ is an incredible inspiration.”

Yet, it is not easy to do this by simple will alone, Bernal talks about her biggest supporters and in school mentors.

“My biggest supporters are my parents who have had to adjust to barely seeing me anymore since I get home late and leave early to get work done. My little sister and brother, who love to see me working on my things,” Bernal said. “ In school, it’s Dr. Mark Rosenberg who is always looking for opportunities for me and always believing in me. Brenezza DaParre, used to be Dr. Rosenberg’s assistant and is now assistant vice president of institutional relations. She’s given me advice all along and I really look up to her as a role model.”

Bernal shares that the success of her work has been in learning how to manage her time effectively and learning how to delegate between her teammates. Knowing when to step back, she says, is one of the most important things one can learn.

As a junior, Bernal is now looking into acquiring internships with aerospace engineering companies like SpaceX and Lockheed Martin to gain insights into the companies and increase her network, she is planning on going to engineering conventions throughout 2015 all across the country.

Bernal has a seemingly endless pool of motivation and a specific goal which is what she attributes to get her through her long hours and copious amounts of work throughout the past three years and even in her future.

“You always need to have a goal because that’s what keeps you going. I don’t think I could be so motivated all the time if I didn’t know that I have my personal goal to have something in space by age 25.”