Sharon M

I am Sharon Macumber, a 4th year ACCEND student in Aerospace Engineering. I am part of The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"AIAA’s vision is to be the voice of the aerospace profession through innovation, technical excellence, and global leadership.” Taken from our mission statement at each meeting: Our mission is to engage with students both in academics and in industry to cultivate academia; practice professional growth; and to develop relationships with peers, faculty, and others in the aerospace industry.

I am the Vice President of the University of Cincinnati’s AIAA student section. I joined as a student member during my junior year of high school and then became active in UC’s student section the first semester of my freshman year. Right away I went to all the conferences and gained networking experience both at UC and in the industry. I then began holding executive positions up until now. From high school I could tell how significant of an organization it was and I knew I wanted to be a member in college.

The UHP Student Leader Roundtable offered an amazing creative space during a time that did not give way to culminating growth. Every week that we met I would take notes and interact with the small discussion group I joined. I came away with new ideas and a renewed sense of motivation to improve my club the best that I could in this virtual environment. Being able to hear from other leaders and incorporate some of their feedback and advice into my club is something that I wish I had every semester. An example of this was learning how to create a Team’s group for our club! I also appreciated that we all bonded over our shared setbacks that arose from an online semester. Even an hour every other week of sharing experiences and thoughts made me feel a lot less alone during the online transition. Overall, we all took the time to consider other people’s experiences and thoughts and grew to become better leaders because of that.