UC Davis Student Trey Lowry Blends Rocketry, Native American Culture and STEM Leadership

In 2023, first-year mechanical engineering major Atreganson “Trey” Lowry was studying at The Nest, home of the Native American Academic Retention Initiative at the University of California, Davis. A staff member approached him to tell him about a meeting in one of the rooms, thinking Lowry might be interested since he was in engineering.

The way Lowry tells it, that’s how he fell (if one can) into rocketry at UC Davis.

“Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had been recruited to a rocketry team,” Lowry said.

The American Indian Science and Engineering Society, or AISES, First Nations Launch Rocketry Team, went on to win first place in the 2025 First Nations Launch competition, which culminated last spring.

Being on the team launched Lowry’s involvement in other areas, including taking on rocketry as a hobby and area of study (he is now double majoring with aerospace science and engineering), initiating a UC Davis chapter of the National Association of Rocketry this year, and joining the leadership team of the UC Davis chapter of AISES to foster the community of Native American people in STEM fields on campus.

The third-year undergraduate has ambitious goals for this year and plans to use UC Davis resources to give him the lift he needs.

Culture in the Countdown

That first year that Lowry was “recruited,” there were only three members of the AISES First Nations Launch Rocketry Team that competed at the First Nations Launch, a NASA-sponsored rocket competition for student teams from Tribal Colleges and Universities, Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions and university chapters of AISES.

“It was kind of insane that our rocket even flew,” Lowry said.

For the 2024-25 competition, Lowry, the team lead, brought more experience to the year-long process, which involves an initial proposal, several design reviews and Zoom presentations before the three-day culminating event, held at Carthage College by the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium.

The team took first place in all the judged categories of the Moon Challenge: written report, oral presentation and the grand prize.

“I was doing homework, and I kept refreshing my email for the notification,” Lowry said. “When I saw that UC Davis got the grand prize, my heart started going crazy, my hands were shaking, it was quite the moment.”

While the win was a monumental indication of the team’s hard work, Lowry's experience of building a rocket with other people of Native American backgrounds — Lowry is of Maidu and Yurok heritage — and competing against other people of similar backgrounds was particularly positive and encouraging. Lowry says the ceremonial aspects of the competition were eye-opening for several of the members.

The competition opened with AISES Council of Elders member Bret Benally Thompson of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe giving a speech on the importance of events like these and performing a prayer song with a drum, as Lowry describes, to set a respectful tone. He also closed the competition with words of pride toward the people who competed, and how competitions like First Nations Launch help foster the new generation of people in STEM fields.

“I think, for many people on the team, that was their first experience interacting with Native American folks,” Lowry said. “It also helped them recognize that the term ‘Native American’ is not a monolith. We’re comprised of many tribes, not only from the United States, but from Canada, Mexico, and South America. It was a good learning experience for everyone.”

The UC Davis team reflected the backgrounds of the Native American team members by incorporating traditional designs in the rocket’s paint job. Andrea Lopez Arguello, a physics alum and current staff member who mentored the team, contributed Oaxacan tribal patterns to the rocket’s aft. Grace Barcelo, a first-year biomedical engineering student, put the Cherokee seal on the nose. The flank features a Yurok basket pattern, as well as a triangle pattern, in honor of its name, Kah-Kah, which is Yurok for “sturgeon,” a species native to the waterways where the Yurok tribe is from.

Seeing the rocket shoot up into the sky was a moment of pride.

“There were a lot of tense emotions during the build-up,” he said. “Once the launch was successful, it was like a release. All the team’s work had led up to that moment.”

Engineering Belonging for Native American Students in STEM

With the First Nations Launch Rocketry competition complete, Lowry is excited to allocate his time toward his current leadership roles: co-chair of the UC Davis AISES chapter and research and development lead of the UC Davis chapter of the National Association of Rocketry, or NAR.

His goal as co-chair of AISES is to build a community of Native American students in STEM through academic success workshops, lab tours and supportive programming, and gather a cohort to attend the 2026 AISES National Conference, which will be held in Portland in October of next year.

In his role, Lowry has met students from STEM majors across campus, including physics, civil engineering, animal science and psychology. For a new biology major, Lowry has been working to get him a lab tour with a faculty advisor who is a member of the Canadian First Nations.

“It’s been a rewarding and educational experience to meet with different folks from different majors and rally them to the AISES chapter cause,” he said.

Lowry is also eager to guide the members of the new UC Davis chapter of NAR to the Friends of Amateur Rocketry, or FAR, Unlimited competition, which takes place in the Mojave Desert in June.

His official title for the club is treasurer, but Lowry also serves in the role of research and development lead, overseeing projects that expand the team’s knowledge and use of high-power rockets and training new and returning club members as they build the competition rocket.

Lowry thinks this competition will be a great learning and training opportunity for the NAR members. The First Nations Launch had very specific parameters regarding the rocket and payload, while the FAR competition is much more open-ended.

“It’s kind of a choose-your-own adventure. We can pick and choose from their guidelines what we want to do — we could have live video cameras or a drone or a moon rover that gets ejected,” he said.

A Future Rooted in Community

Lowry’s ultimate goal is to return to tribal communities, like the one where he grew up in Humboldt County, where multiple tribes are centrally located and come together for community ceremonies and celebrations. He hopes to use his engineering knowledge to assist tribes in resolving technical issues such as power supply and telecommunications.

“I was fortunate to have a really rich cultural upbringing,” said Lowry. “I would like to go back to those communities and put my experience to use working for the tribe.” 

Whether it’s rocketry or giving back to his community, UC Davis is Lowry’s launchpad to his next steps.