• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• University of California - Los Angeles, Aerospace Engineering, ‘24

• Host Institution: The Aerospace Corporation

• Mentor: Kate Tice

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Anjali Koganti is a third year Aerospace Engineering Student at UCLA. Inspired by her childhood love for building, whether it was Lego sets or potato light bulb circuits, she strives to create a meaningful impact on humanity’s journey to the stars. Anjali especially enjoys working on the intersection between computer science and space flight, fulfilling her zeal for complex problem solving, and using creativity to find innovative solutions to engineering challenges. Beyond her class work, Anjali is an avid Bharatanatyam (classical Indian dance form) student, and enjoys hiking, needlework, and trying new foods, from her hometown in San Diego to LA.

Anjali has been deeply involved in the rocketry and engineering community at UCLA since her first year. She began as head of the recovery component of Rocket Project at UCLA’s hybrid rocket new member team, designing the parachutes and avionics circuit for the rocket. From there she became project lead of the hybrid team, guiding more than 80 students through the design, manufacturing, and test cycle of a hybrid rocket, launched successfully in Fall 2022. This year, Anjali is Rocket Project’s outreach director, allowing her to share her enthusiasm for the cosmos with elementary and middle school students. She furthers her interest in outreach as a mentor for the Samueli School of Engineering and Society of Women Engineers, helping younger Bruin engineers through their first year at UCLA. She is also an Engineering Ambassador, serving as a campus tour guide to prospective engineering students. Additionally, she teaches a project based rocketry engineering course to fellow undergraduates at UCLA, helping them launch small solid rockets in the Mojave Desert.

This past summer, Anjali worked at Relativity Space as a Simulation and Controls Engineer intern, refining and improving the code that simulates flight of the company’s novel 3D printed rockets and calculates the maximum payload mass possible. This summer, Anjali is greatly excited to be interning at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California as a Space Vehicle Modeling and Simulation Intern.