Pari Vaddoriya

I'm currently an incoming sophomore in college majoring in aerospace engineering. My journey into this field began when I was a little kid and my uncle told me about Kalpana Chawla and her adventures in the space industry. That really inspired me, and on top of that, my uncle was an aeronautical engineer himself, which really guided me to go into aerospace engineering. During my high school years, I served as team leader of an FTC Robotics team, and that year I was the only one that actually had experience in robotics, so I had to guide the whole team and mentor them myself. I'm currently working in a lab for FPGA, and although I've signed the contract and everything, I'll start next semester. I have a mentor who saw potential in me and liked how I can work in very harsh environments, like with non-working teammates, and they really liked my thought process. I'm actively seeking internships to gain more experience and have applied to NASA. I'm also working on a project with Lombok, Indonesia, and I enjoy building things in my free time with Arduino kits. Outside of academics, I play ultimate frisbee and enjoy amateur stargazing. I'm planning on starting my own business as an insurance company on the side as a source of income.