Caydence Palmer has good reasons to be optimistic about her future. A senior at Mescalero Apache High School, she is applying to her dream college — the University of Arizona — and hoping to enter the field of mechanical engineering. Palmer, who’s had opportunities to travel the world, to be the youngest student in advanced engineering classes, and to be the only Indigenous participant in her highly competitive NASA internship cohort, is used to breaking barriers.
For Palmer, education is a family affair. Her grandfather, a former tribal president, held a doctorate and urged her from a young age to go to college. “He took education very seriously,” Palmer remembers. Her aunts all have degrees and would encourage Palmer to complete her schoolwork. “My aunties and my grandfather always said that education is the most important thing, and no one can take it away from me,” Palmer explains, crediting her family with helping her reach her goals.
STEM is in her blood: Palmer’s father was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science at the time of his death when she was three years old. Palmer knew she had the support of her family, though her mother was not present. “My grandmother was always there for me,” Palmer says. “She’s basically a mother to me.”
That focus on education has changed the trajectory of Palmer’s life. “When I was in elementary school, I thought I would be working on my reservation. Then my high school teacher, Mr. Raynor, encouraged me to get into STEM. Now I have opportunities beyond the reservation,” Palmer says. She credits education as her ticket to a better future. “My tribe has started to realize that students have more success in education than sports, so they are making it known that education is more important,” she adds.
She first became interested in STEM during the advanced engineering class she took her first year. “I was the only freshman in a class of seniors,” she recalls. “I was kind of scared.” Through determination, she completed the course, and it sparked a love for mechanical engineering. That class acted as a catalyst that launched Palmer on a track to pursue a college degree in the field and perhaps even a PhD. “I just like to put things together,” she says.
Palmer’s internship at NASA has been an important part of her STEM experience. “I have a documentary on an air quality project I did in my community, and that is how I got the internship,” she explains. “I went to Austin and met all sorts of different people. Now people recognize me — I used to be really shy before this, and now I do a lot of public service and public speaking. Now I’m ‘NASA girl!’”
Palmer’s dream is to be an engineer for The Boeing Company. She toured one of its facilities during the 2021 National Conference and was inspired after seeing an Apache helicopter. “When they opened the doors to the hangar, my heart was happy,” she recalls, laughing.
In longer-range plans, she hopes to return to her reservation someday to support her community and perhaps run for tribal president. Her passion for her community drove her to start a food security program on her reservation during her first year of high school. After researching food insecurity, she began to look for ways to alleviate hardships. Palmer has been working on her program for three years and hopes to set up food banks for her tribe. “Anything I can do to help my community,” she says. “I’m all in.”
When asked if she has advice for students like her who hope to go to college, she immediately replied with a message that she heard growing up: “Even if it’s hard, don’t ever feel too little or like you aren’t enough to go to college,” she says. “Whatever anyone else can do, you can do yourself.”
