Valerie Aguilar has a passion for meshing creativity with functionality. For years, one of her hobbies and passions has been working on motorcycles. It has been a fun outlet for her to use hands-on experience and try out new ideas to design her own unique mechanical parts for her bike. In the process, she learned how to design lightweight, yet functional and aerodynamic, parts to keep the bike as efficient as possible. Her interest in motorcycles eventually led her to discover aerospace engineering in its ability to take an idea and turn it into reality. Being able to work towards a design, while trying out new ideas and exploring even larger concepts of science is something that has led her to pursue a career in aerospace engineering.