Contact: Phil Hearn
Angela Spence
Angela Spence once spent summers helping her dad grout tile and install sheetrock, but spends most of her time these days piling up academic honors as an aerospace engineering and physics major at Mississippi State.
Earlier this year, the national 2003 Goldwater Scholar and 2002 Ottilie Schillig Leadership Scholar became one of only three students from Mississippi named to USA Today's 2004 All-USA College Academic Teams. Millsaps College's Kenneth Townsend of Kosciusko and Vanderbilt University student Amber Wallin of Picayune were the others.
"I got a lot of my technical know-how from my dad," Angela said of her father, Cheney Spence of Brandon, an executive at Jackson's BankPlus. "Dad built our house. I spent summers and Saturdays watching and helping him hang sheetrock and grout tile."
A self-described "voracious reader" of Jane Austen novels and Tom Clancy "political thrillers," Spence said she also enjoys playing the piano. Her mother, Jane Jackson of Philadelphia, is a former high school history teacher who now teaches adult education at East Central Community College.
Angela said her parents are proud of her scientific accomplishments; but, when conversations at home veer into the technical lingo of mathematics and engineering, her mother may interrupt with: "Great! Now, explain that in words I can understand."
She said both parents and her stepmother, Diana, are "very hard-working people" who have encouraged and nurtured her scientific interests, which budded as an elementary school student in Philadelphia and blossomed during her middle-school years. The 21-year-old Valentine Day's child has two younger siblings: Carl, a senior at Neshoba Central High School; and Johnanna, a junior at Northwest Rankin Attendance Center.
After completing the eighth grade, Spence attended a summer camp at Mississippi State geared toward prospective engineering students and decided, after getting a close look at a variety of programs, that she wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
"I walked around in a wind tunnel and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen," she recalled. "It was aerospace engineering from that moment on."
Angela spent her junior and senior high school years at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in nearby Columbus, which provided a rigorous and innovative academic curricula. That experience away from the comforts of home strengthened her study habits, helped her mature and allowed her to begin working in MSU's aerospace engineering laboratory one afternoon a week through a special research program.
"I came to MSU (as a freshman) with 29 hours of college credit and jumped into classes here. I felt comfortable," said Spence, now a junior on schedule to graduate in May of 2005, although she already has enough credit-hours to be classified as a senior.
While maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade-point average in accumulating 103 hours of academic credit at the university, Spence has participated in a variety of off-campus research activities designed to hone her real-world, professional skills.
She conducted fluid dynamics research at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., in the summer of 2002. Last year, she worked with researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on separate projects involving airplane stability and control, and development of a proposed aircraft for use on Mars.
This year, Spence is a member of a student team that will represent MSU's Bagley College of Engineering in annual Design-Build-Fly competition sponsored by Cessna Corp. and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. The 2004 spring event at Wichita, Kan., is expected to draw some 40 teams from the United States and abroad.
"I am very proud of Angela," said college dean A. Wayne Bennett. "She is a natural leader whose enthusiasm is contagious. Combine these characteristics with her intellect and you have a truly outstanding person."
Spence's selection as a Schillig Scholar for 2001-02 and as a 2003 recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, awarded nationally for excellence in undergraduate research, placed her in a select group of student scholars.
Her designation in February as a member of the USA Today's 2004 All-USA College Academic Second Team solidified her academic standing among university peers across the country. Only 82 students from among 600 nominations are picked for the honor.