Snigdha Nellutla is an incoming PhD student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. She earned her BS in Aerospace Engineering in December 2023 and completed her MS in December 2024 as part of Georgia Tech’s AE BS/MS Honors program, where she cultivated a passion for bridging engineering and planetary science to advance the search for life beyond Earth.

Her research interests lie in understanding planetary habitability through the study of aerosols in planetary atmospheres and the conditions that support life beyond Earth. As a science team member for the Rocket Lab Venus mission and a research assistant in Dr. Christopher Carr’s Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL), where she will continue her research as a PhD student, she developed a simulation to model the instrument's data stream to optimize particle analysis. She also designed and tested an aerosol collection system to support future Venus atmospheric sample return missions.

Beyond research, she is deeply committed to education and outreach. As a NASA Solar System Ambassador since 2021, she organizes webinars and career workshops to inspire young students, especially girls, to pursue STEM fields. She also mentors underprivileged students in rural India, helping them build both technical and soft skills to thrive in science and engineering careers.

Motivated since childhood by the mysteries of the cosmos, she hopes to lead interdisciplinary research that design instruments and missions to explore planetary atmospheres, uncover the origins of life, and inform our understanding of Earth’s future.