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McNutt, of Decatur, Alabama, has worked with as an electrical design and analysis engineer since graduating from Ole Miss in 2018. She has spent the past several years involved in building and testing the spacecraft's electronics system and serves as an avionics test lead on NASA's Space Launch System for the Artemis program.

She was at the Kennedy Space Center for Artemis II's launch, which felt surreal, exciting and nerve-wracking, but rewarding, she said.

"I've spent my entire career thinking about this moment, preparing as a part of Artemis I – an uncrewed mission – as well, but the fact that we had humans on this rocket, it just elevated the stakes and made it more memorable because it's the first time we've gone back to the moon in 53 years," McNutt said.

As part of the team that builds and tests the avionics system, she helps make launches possible.

"This means I help coordinate and execute testing to ensure all the rocket's electrical and communication systems are functioning properly before flight," she said.

McNutt was not only involved with the program before the flight, but also during launch and the mission, when she monitored the rocket's "brain."

"For launch, I was on console monitoring the command and data handling system on the core stage, which is essentially the 'brain' on the rocket," she said. "That includes the flight computers and critical communication links that allow the vehicle to send and receive data and commands.

"My role was to watch the system health in real time, verify everything was operating as expected, and be ready to quickly identify and respond to any issues leading up to and during launch."

But, before helping send astronauts around the moon, McNutt had to decide where to attend college. She grew up in a staunch University of Alabama family, and although she later earned an executive MBA from UA, she chose Ole Miss to prepare her for her engineering career.

"I literally became the 'rebel' of the family when I chose to go to Ole Miss," the Rotary Club member said.

She visited UM, Alabama and some other smaller schools to possibly play softball. She fell in love with Ole Miss.

"They wrote me a handwritten note after I went on my visit, and that felt really personal to me, and I was meant to be there," McNutt said. "I didn't quite feel that with any other school that I visited, and so it felt like I was meant to be there."

On a whim at orientation, the Pi Beta Phi sorority member changed her major to engineering.

"l always enjoyed math and science and I came from a family of engineers," she said. "I thought it was something that would be interesting and open up a whole array of different opportunities.

"I don't regret my decision at all. I think it was the best decision I could have possibly made."

Becoming an engineer and working with is also a familial full-circle moment and a way of honoring her late grandfather, Pryor Wilson Sandlin, who was affectionately called "Fess" and worked at NASA before it was even called NASA

"He started in the late 1950s, working through the Apollo program, through Skylab program, until he retired in the '80s," she said. "He had a passion for space, was immensely devoted and proud of his work and working for NASA, and my mom talks about how proud he would be of me.

"One of the only two times in his life that he cried was when my grandmother passed away and when Challenger exploded. So, I felt like I honored him in a sense, working on the Artemis program and continuing the legacy of space exploration and just a love for space."

McNutt's involvement with the Artemis program is the best kind of full-circle moment for a professor to hope for, said Tejas Pandya, instructional associate professor of mechanical engineering.

"To know that a student I once had in class is now helping bring us back to the moon through Artemis is deeply moving," he said. "Their success is all their own hard work, but it reaffirms everything I love about engineering, being part of an amazing experience while contributing to solve a complex problem."

McNutt's career with the space program began with a "Hotty Toddy" moment.

"I was sitting in a NASA meeting, and I look over, and I see this man has an Ole Miss cup, so I said, 'Hotty Toddy' to him," she said. "He asked, 'What do you know about Ole Miss?'"

The guy with an Ole Miss cup was Markeeva Morgan, an Ole Miss engineering alumnus who has served on the advisory board and the board of directors.

McNutt told him she recently graduated from Ole Miss and Morgan took her under his wing, becoming her mentor, taking her on recruiting trips to Oxford and sharing with her to not be afraid to put herself out there and introduce herself to others – all because of a Hotty Toddy.

"Ole Miss played a huge role in getting me here," she said.

"It gave me the foundation, confidence and the community that set me up for opportunities like this. It's been really special to see that journey come full circle, from being a student in Oxford to sitting on console for a mission headed to the moon."

Top: Ole Miss mechanical engineer alumna Addison McNutt stands in front of the rocket she helped develop and test as an electrical design and analysis engineer with Boeing at the Vertical Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. She serves as an avionics test lead on NASA’s Space Launch System for the Artemis program. Submitted photo