Shippensburg University alumnus and former women’s tennis team member transitioned from being a student-athlete to an intern at NASA. Her time as an biology student, Wood Honors College student and a key player on the women’s tennis team was an incredibly formative experience for her. 

“Tennis was definitely the group I spent the most time with on campus, and I couldn’t have asked for better teammates,” Cantwell said. “I know my time as a student-athlete had a lot of transitions going on with the team, but that just makes it even better to see how successful they are now under Coach Dylan Curtis.”

Upon graduating, Cantwell was excited to take on the exciting challenge of interning at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. She moved across the country for four months, living on the research base without a car.

“Being away from everyone I knew was difficult, but it was definitely worth it with how fulfilling the work was,” she said. 

At NASA, Cantwell worked extensively with fruit flies, studying them to develop crucial genetic and neuroscience research. One of her main responsibilities included maintaining fly stocks, but what she enjoyed most of all was sorting and separating different fly genotypes. 

“There were generally hundreds of flies I would have to do over the course of a few days, but after a while, I’d just get into a zone, and it would be really peaceful,” she said. 

She also played a part in imaging experiments, where flies were dissected, tagged and examined under a fluorescent microscope to visualize different sections of their brains. 

“It would show us various sections of the brain light up based on certain markers we used, which I always thought looked so cool.”

Transitioning from student-athlete to research intern at NASA wasn’t easy, but Cantwell remained confident in her abilities and believes Ship prepared her well. 

“When I was still at Ship, I had to juggle my coursework, practice and workout times, my own student research, and anything else school decided to throw on top of that,” she said. 

Cantwell’s internship with NASA has reinforced her passion for research. She hopes to continue her education in graduate school and pursue a career in a lab setting. For students looking to enter STEM or research fields, Cantwell emphasizes the importance of staying persistent. 

“Before I got my internship at NASA, I was rejected from a couple of different internships and job opportunities,” she said. “As long as you stay persistent, good things will come your way.”

From the classrooms and the tennis courts at Ship to conducting research in NASA’s labs, alumna Brighid Cantwell exemplifies that if you stay persistent and work hard toward a goal, almost anything is possible.