ANANYA MALHOTRA 
(she/her)

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

  • University of Pennsylvania, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, ‘24

  • Host Institution: Blue Origin

  • Mentor: Nicole Stott

  • Brookie Mentor: TBD

Ananya is a junior majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and minoring in Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her love for invention and exploration developed at a very young age, as she spent hours designing complex Lego structures and planning adventures in her hometown, Mumbai. After her first planetarium show, intrigued by the sheer expanse and timelessness of space, Ananya fell in love with the idea of being an astronaut when she grew up. Over the next decade, this, along with her interests in engineering and the environment, developed into a desire to not only go to space but also contribute to the sustainability of the aerospace industry.

In college, Ananya joined M51 Space, a student-run start-up focused on ambitious rocket engineering projects. As a member of the mechanical team, she, along with one other student, is designing and building the airbrake for their 100K apogee rocket for the Friends of Amateur Rocketry Competition. She has also been involved in robotics research since her freshman year through the Rachleff Scholars Program. She works on projects involving communication among robots, including developing a machine learning algorithm to optimize the connectivity of multi-robot systems.

Additionally, Ananya is very about promoting diversity in STEM opportunities and has been on the Executive Board of the Society of Women Engineers chapter at Penn since her freshman year. Here, she focuses on facilitating professional initiatives for women in engineering at her school and locals high schools in Philadelphia.

Through these roles, she has learned about leadership, teamwork, and the creativity required to tackle seemingly impossible engineering problems, which she hopes to use for a career in sustainable space travel. On campus, she is involved in Penn Raas, Penn Access Engineering, Wharton Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Club, and Penn Appetit. In her free time, she loves dancing, flying trapeze, traveling, baking, and staying active. As a 2023 Brooke Owens Fellow, Ananya is thrilled to work with Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, FL, over the summer!