SPACE CAFE INDIA LAUNCHES WITH DR KC SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS TO TOP INDIAN WOMEN SCHOLARS:
August 6, 2020 - Strasbourg, France - The Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholars announce the selection of four top women scholars to the 2020 Interactive Space Program (ISP) Space Studies Program (SSP) at the world-renowned, International Space University (ISU), by providing postgraduate scholarships.
The Kalpana Chawla Project for Innovation, Entrepreneurism and Space Studies at the International Space University (also known as the Dr. KC Scholars) has been established to honor the Indian-American Astronaut Dr. Kalpana Chawla. The scholarship project is focused on developing strong technical and leadership qualities with talented Indian women. The scholars selected for this year’s ISP include:
Kavindi De Silva, Kritee Mahanti, Vinita Shinkar, Priyanka Roy Chowdhury
Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholarship for SSP19 awarded to Nikhitha Chadde, Nitya Pandey, Aditi Nilvarna, Rushanka Amrutkar
Strasbourg, France - July 11, 2019, The Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholarship project announces four of its funded scholars. According to Dr. Michael Potter of Geeks Without Frontiers, one of the scholarship founders, “The first Indian woman to land on the Moon has already been born. It is very likely that this young woman will go through an elite institution like the International Space University before she steps foot on the Moon in a little over a decade’s time. This scholarship project is a historic opportunity to achieve an international impact with very select, but very talented, Indian post-graduate students.”
The Dr. Kalpana Chawla Project for Innovation, Entrepreneurism and Space Studies at the International Space University (ISU) has been established to honor the Indian-American Astronaut Dr. Kalpana Chawla. The scholarship project is focused on developing strong technical and leadership qualities within talented Indian women. The scholarship provides funding for Indian nationals to attend ISU’s Space Studies Program (SSP). The goal is to attract talented Indian women who are postgraduate students with backgrounds in science, medicine, materials, satellite technology, and other space-related areas of focus who also share Dr. Chawla’s selfless and passionate pursuit of education and excellence.
The 2019 Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholars are:
Nikhitha Chadde, Nitya Pandey, Aditi Nilvarna, and Rushanka Amrutkar
Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholarship for SSP18 awarded to Anisha Rajmane and Palak Singh
Anisha from Kolhapur is a Production Engineer who worked as a trainee engineer at Manugraph India LTD, Kolhapur in the field of quality check and inspection. Her interest started gradually growing with some undertakings’ on appropriate metals required for proper functioning of the satellites and temperature change, outgassing, contamination, erosion, plasma effects, atmospheric density, solar and nuclear radiation have on the satellites and spacecraft. She has a career objective to work with the commercial aerospace sector at a global level with areas of interests in space engineering, space laws, and management. She is also associated with Astro education Pune where she serves as an instructor working as an instructor and have been conducting various space-related activities in Kolhapur city.
Palak obtained her bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, with a strong desire of being an innovator in the field of aerospace. She had been working as a research assistant in the Aerospace department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur to develop an aircraft in ultralight aviation with challenging restraints presented in terms of objective and design. She been performing incredibly and participating in Space settlement design and development. She holds the interest in research of lifting bodies and re-entry in hopes to work further on it in the near future. Currently, she is working on the Finite Element Method Analysis of Bird Strikes.
Dr. Kalpana Chawla Scholarship for SSP17 awarded to Sonal Baberwal
The Dr. KC Scholarship project announces its first funded scholar, Sonal Baberwal. After finalizing the Mount Carmel High School, Sonal pursued towards an engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunication from the Sipna College of Engineering and Technology, Amravati, Maharashtra, India under Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University. Sonal has a broad interest in robotics, Pluto, space debris and environmental aspects, just to name a few, but also in the field of Space and Art, in which context she got in contact with NASA astronaut Nicole Stott. She has made several presentations on space-related topics in India and it is worth noting that she won several chess tournaments.