Keerthi Padmanabhan 
(she/her)

  • Brooke Owens Fellow, Class of 2026

  • Georgia Institute of Technology, Materials Science and Engineering , ‘26

  • Mentor: TBD

  • Brookie Mentor: TBD

Keerthi Padmanabhan is a senior undergraduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology pursuing a degree in Materials Science and Engineering with a minor in Industrial Design. Originally from Rockville, Maryland, she developed an early interest in space exploration through her visits to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

In 2025, her dream to support human spaceflight came to life. Co-oping as a NASA Pathways intern at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, she worked on both engineering and flight control teams. There, she supported upcoming missions by testing spacesuit materials for the first woman on the Moon and developing predictive tools for the Emergency, Environmental, and Consumables Officer (EECOM) team for Artemis II.

Keerthi believes that good engineering is sustainable engineering. She is particularly interested in reusable materials for space and is fascinated by in-situ resource utilization. This summer, she is excited to intern on the Space Resources team at Blue Origin and be a Brookie! She is incredibly grateful for the mentorship she has received throughout her academic and professional journey thus far and aspires to provide the same support to other women pursuing careers in aerospace.

Her passion for service began at age 16. In 2020, she founded Bravely Ending Anemia Together (BEAT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting individuals with nutritional anemia. Through BEAT, she has led numerous local and global service initiatives. At Georgia Tech, she served as the K-12 Outreach Chair for the Society of Women Engineers, planning STEM workshops for students in Atlanta. She also is a part of Engineers Without Borders at Georgia Tech, where her team is working to construct a health clinic in Santo Domingo, Ecuador. Additionally, she is involved in nanomaterials and electronics research on campus.

Outside of these involvements, she enjoys running, hiking, singing, playing the guitar, and playing frisbee.