Home News A 12-year-old African American girl enrolls at Arizona State University to pursue engineering and chemistry.

A 12-year-old African American girl enrolls at Arizona State University to pursue engineering and chemistry.

Posted December 5, 2023 by v2909

At just 12-years old, Alena Wicker is set to start college at Arizona State University, majoring in astronomical and planetary science and chemistry. She plans to be an engineer for NASA someday.

“I always dreamed of being an engineer because throughout my life I liked the building,” Alena told 11Alive about her goal to work at NASA.

Since she was 4-years old, it had always been her dream as she was building NASA-sized Legos.

“She just had a gift for numbers and Lego and science so I started nurturing that gift,” said her mother Daphne McQuarter.

When Alena finished high school through homeschool classes, she began pursuing that dream and will be starting classes at ASU this summer. She expects to finish college at the age of 16.

“I’ll be driving in one of those future space mobiles by the time that I graduate college,” Alena said, adding that she wants to build rovers that could be sent to other planets as well.

More than that, Alena is also also very active on her Facebook page where she plans to launch a podcast to share her journey.