Engineering Heroes: AAE's Sirisha Bandla and Thendral Kamal

A new series from #PurdueEngineering allows current #engineering students to meet their #Purdue alumni heroes. The first installment of the series features School of Aeronautics and Astronautics alumna Sirisha Bandla, who became a member of the university's "Cradle of Astronauts" in 2021, and AAE sophomore Thendral Kamal, an aspiring "Marstronaut."
Bandla and Kamal sat down for a conversation in April 2023 inside the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, named after the alumnus who was the first person to walk on the moon. Afterward, the pair went out front to pose for pictures with the Neil statue and in front of the building, which is plastered with a monster-sized banner boasting Bandla's image.
For Kamal, Bandla rose to "hero" status after Bandla's flight on Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity to space. Kamal, of Indian descent, watched it live and saw herself in the Indian-origin Bandla.
“She’s just like me,” Kamal said after the conversation. “I see myself in her shoes and that’s the most important thing about representation. One of the biggest aspects of the reason why we push for representation for more women of color and underrepresented minorities to be the face of the aerospace industry is so girls can see themselves in the shoes of their heroes. That’s what I was able to do.”
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The largest engineering college in the top 5, Purdue Engineering anchors Purdue University as the “Cradle of Astronauts,” from College alumni Neil Armstrong to the first female commercial astronaut. Other trailblazers include Amelia Earhart, seven National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients, and nine National Academy of Inventors Fellows. Our agricultural and biological engineering programs ranked No. 1 for more than a decade, and the College houses the world’s largest academic propulsion lab and the nation’s first all-digital nuclear reactor.
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