Student-Athlete Of The Month: Ava Zimmerman

Ava Zimmerman is a two-time state champion in field hockey. She’s an accomplished middle-distance track runner. She’s a perfect 4.0 unweighted GPA student and a member of three separate honor societies — National Honor Society (NHS), Spanish NHS and Science NHS.

But all of that is a vehicle to get Zimmerman where she really wanted to go: Johns Hopkins University, where she plans to continue her athletic career in both sports.

Her relationship with Hopkins, though, has been something years in the making, both on the athletic field and off of it.

“Hopkins was pretty much always my top choice. I just wanted a school that would be good for mechanical engineering,” Zimmerman said. “I went to a lot of (field hockey) camps and clinics at Hopkins, got watched by them a lot, kept in a lot of communication.”

Keeping tabs on Hopkins not only led to a roster spot for two different sports with the Blue Jays; it also gave Zimmerman the opportunity to work on something far more ambitious; her engineering program participation at Hopkins has already gone in an unexpected direction.

Hoping to focus generally on mechanical engineering because of her interest and the field’s versatility, Zimmerman signed up for the Aspire Internship summer program with the university’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Upon students’ acceptance, Hopkins keeps the participants’ roles secret until they arrive at the program.

Zimmerman’s role? The space sector. Specifically, Hopkins’ Dragonfly team, which collaborates with NASA and is currently working on what Dragonfly calls “a car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter” they hope to send to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, for sampling and analysis to better understand the universe. Having just been partnered by NASA with SpaceX, Dragonfly plans to launch in July 2028.

“I heard about it through the school counselor. I didn't know much about what it was — you apply for what you kind of want to major in, but they don't tell you what you're going to do until you show up on day one,” Zimmerman said. “I initially only did it in the summer but decided to continue doing it because my group is so amazing, and I love what I’m working on. I'm just excited for when Dragonfly launches and I can say, ‘Hey, I really worked on that.’”

For now, though, there is a lot of internship work, multiple AP classes, track and field, club field hockey, and community service. It’s a lot, but Zimmerman wouldn’t have it any other way.

In addition to all the training, she works with the Maryland Book Bank to help the less fortunate get books into their hands, and hopefully increase the overall literacy rate in the area. It’s part of her leadership project for Severna Park High School, but it’s also a cause dear to her own heart.

“I think that everyone should have a chance to learn, like I've been fortunate to learn about engineering, but that came from the basics like reading,” she said.

As Zimmerman’s time at Severna Park draws to a close, she reflected on the memories of being a state champ as a freshman and as a senior, the way things came full circle, and how she can now look on the next generation of Falcons athletes like those before her looked on at her class.

“I remember the bus ride up (from the state championship against Westminster), and we read letters from previous years' seniors that were saved for us, which got us fired up, and the locker room before the game got us set up to go,” Zimmerman said. “I remember freshman year, when my coach just told me to go on the field and run. I developed from someone that you just sent on to run to someone you rely on, and that happened to all of the seniors on the team.

“Every year there was more trust built, and as you go on, it feels great to be relied on because you can help develop the next generation. You know the little girls (in the community) and the freshmen are looking up to you. They're so important to you because you know they're the next generation and you want to see where they go. I'm proud to be a part of that.”