Once upon a time, there was a young girl who lived right in the very center of New York City, in a place called the Roosevelt Projects. Her name was Aprille Ericsson, and she loved to learn.

Brooklyn, New York. A star marks the Roosevelt Projects. 

When Aprille was young, she discovered that math and science were her favorite subjects. She liked the challenge of working hard on a problem. 

When she was in first grade, she watched the Apollo space missions and watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk across the moon for the first time on TV. That was the first thing that made her interested in becoming a scientist.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin poses for a picture on the moon, 20 July 1969.

Aprille tried out lots of different interests in school. She was part of the band, science club, honors club, basketball team, and softball team. She thought it was very important to have a well-rounded life. This would help her learn lots of new things.

When Aprille was in high school, she moved to Massachusetts to live with her grandparents. There, she was invited to participate in a program called UNITE. This was a summer school program that helped minority high school students try out jobs in engineering, science, and entrepreneurship.

This program helps students who might have been pushed away or discouraged from science, technology, and engineering to try it out and also meet important people they may work with later.

This experience made her even more interested in science. Her mom and grandparents helped her to succeed by giving her all of the encouragement that she needed. They knew that she could do it!

 She decided to go to college to earn a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and then a master’s degree in engineering. She wanted to become an astronaut.

When she graduated, Aprille got a job with NASA. She was so excited. She felt that she was ready to be an astronaut on the space shuttle. 

She was accepted to the Goddard Space Flight Center as an engineer for robotics. Everything was coming together for her goal of becoming an astronaut.