• Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2023

• Purdue University - West Lafayette, Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering, ‘25

• Host Institution: SES

• Mentor: Kellie Gerardi

• Brookie Mentor: TBD

Thendral is a sophomore majoring in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering (AAE) at Purdue University. She is also pursuing a certificate in Professional Industry Experience as a co-op intern for Delta Airlines Technical Operations, working as a Component Engineer in the Landing Gear division.

Thendral hopes to brings a unique multicultural and diverse facet to every team project she works on. Since the age of 13, she has been working towards her goal of becoming the first Indian woman to set foot on the planet Mars. In her spare time, she enjoys scuba diving, community theatre, and hiking with friends.

Her passion to pursue a career in engineering solidified when she won a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to construct an experiment to be tested onboard a microgravity-simulating parabolic flight, with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. At the age of 16, she constructed a fully functioning apparatus to prove Archimedes’ Principle of buoyancy in reduced gravity conditions. Getting to experience weightlessness for the first time also cemented her goal of becoming an astronaut.

An avid orator, she gave a TEDx talk titled, ‘We Choose to Go to Mars,’ on the importance of funding and investing in crewed missions to Mars. Recognized for her commitment to DEI in the aerospace industry, Thendral was named one of the 24 Under 24 Leaders and Innovators in STEAM and Space by the Mars Generation, in 2021.

Thendral also has a deep interest in high school and undergraduate research, having co-authored a paper on globular clusters in the Virgo Cluster as part of UC Santa Cruz’s Science Internship Program. She has also presented this research in the form of a poster at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. She is also the winner of the Purdue Summer Stay Scholarship, which led her to involvement in research with the Purdue Polytechnic Institute in her freshman year.

Her time at Purdue has been marked by her involvement as Communications Officer at the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) lab for 2 consecutive semesters, where she worked to design and deliver a display mount for a GE 90 composite fan blade. She has spearheaded multiple engineering design reviews for the EPICS Aero and Astro Engineering Team.

As a 2023 Brooke Owens Fellow, Thendral is excited to join SES in Washington, DC, and explore working with satellite infrastructure.