MAYA V. MISHRA 
(MY-uh MIH-shruh, she/her)

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2022

  • Princeton University, A.B. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology with Certificates in Creative Writing, Global Health & Health Policy, Planets & Life , ‘22

  • Host Institution: MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative

  • Executive Mentor: Kris Lehnhardt

  • Brookie Mentor: Kat Ternus

Maya V. Mishra is a graduating senior at Princeton University in the class of 2022, concentrating in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. She is also pursuing certificates in Creative Writing, Global Health & Health Policy, and Planets & Life (astrobiology). She plans to attend medical school to become a flight surgeon, and hopes to spend her career leveraging research in space to benefit life on Earth.

Maya has interned twice at NASA Headquarters, in the Office of the Chief Health & Medical Officer (OCHMO, 2019) and with the Biodiversity & Ecological Forecasting Program Element (B&EF, 2021). In the prior position, she reviewed Apollo medical debriefs to determine how NASA must adapt its medical requirements for its upcoming return to the Moon with Artemis. With B&EF, she pinpointed uses for NASA's Earth Observing data to prevent disease spillover events and future pandemics.

At Princeton, Maya is currently completing two senior theses. Her Ecology & Evolution thesis searches for antimicrobial resistance genes in the gut microbiome of mice that completed a month-long mission to the International Space Station, which will help to assess the risk of resistant infections to astronauts. For the Certificate in Creative Writing, she is working on a collection of science-fiction short stories that focus on humanity's relationship to technology and nature. When she's not in the library, she serves as both a Peer Academic Adviser and a Peer Health Adviser, helping other students choose classes and balance their health with academics. She additionally mentors a cohort of sophomores in exploring service in the food justice arena through the Princeton Service Focus Program, and she writes, directs, and acts in comedy theatre as the president of Princeton South Asian Theatrics. Maya loves running, reading great novels, and cooking vegetarian food.

Maya is delighted to be working with the MIT Media Lab's Space Exploration Initiative as a Brooke Owens Fellow.