Engineers!
Crystal L. Harris grew up in inner-city Atlanta with a passion for flight, and often wondered how it was that the airplanes could fly. After enrolling in college at Tuskegee University, she studied Aerospace Science Engineering and volunteered at the local Historic Moton Field airport to get flight time. She was awarded a flight scholarship and obtained a Private Pilot Single-Engine Airplane rating. Ultimately Harris became one of 100 African American women to receive a pilot’s license and was the tenth woman to receive a pilot’s license from training at Moton Field. After obtaining her Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Science Engineering she set out to explore the world and was selected to join the Boeing flight test team as a Flight Test Engineer.
Harris held several positions at Boeing including Flight Test Engineer, Field Service Engineer, Post Production Review Engineer, Flight Test Engineering Manager, and most recently she began working as Technical Operations Manager at Northrop Grumman. She also serves as a global mentor and actively participates in local initiatives involving STEM.
Through her thirteen-year professional career, Harris has challenged the “SysSTEM” through advocacy. She strives to better her position as well as to provide more opportunities for those that are under disenfranchised in the aerospace industry.
Harris was recognized in 2013 with a Women of Color Rising Stars Award. She is an active member in both the Society of Women Engineers and Women in Aviation. She is also a Charter Member of the Women in Aviation, International Alamo City Chapter in San Antonio. As part of her serving spirit as an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Harris has served as a mentor for the EngineerGirl website for over ten years.
She currently holds a Commercial-Instrument Single and Multi-Engine rating, and most recently began training at Van Nuys airport. As an industry engineer, she has always maintained an ambition to one day pilot the aircraft that she serves.