Kristi Barnes Wins $15,000 Astronaut Scholarship, Paving Her Way to a Future in Chemical Engineering

Kristi Barnes, a top-performing Chemical Engineering student at North Carolina A&T, earned a $15,000 Astronaut Scholarship for her academic excellence and STEM contributions, making history as part of the first HBCU cohort to win the award while pursuing a career focused on health innovation and diversity in

Kristi Barnes, a gifted Chemical Engineering major at North Carolina A&T State University with a minor in Applied Mathematics, has been awarded the prestigious $15,000 Astronaut Scholarship in recognition of her outstanding academic performance and dedication to STEM.

She made history alongside two others as the first group from a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to receive the award in the same year. Kristi previously interned at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in high school, earned a perfect 4.0 GPA in college, and completed internships with Abbott and Eli Lilly.

She also received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Racial Equity Initiative Scholarship and co-authored a study on COVID-19 mask mandates.

Driven by a desire to address health disparities like Type 2 diabetes, Kristi aims to use chemical engineering to innovate in medicine, nutrition, and diagnostics—while also advocating for greater diversity in STEM careers.

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SOURCES: ALLSCHOOL, SCHOLARSHIP REGION