Gitika Gorthi Joins Closing Fireside Chat
The Space Education Summit team is thrilled to announce that our teammate Gitika Gorthi will join us for the closing Capstone Session May 30, 2025! Gitika Gorthi, the founder of Ignited Thinkers will by hosted by Frank White, author of The Overview Effect, for an interactive community discussion. Gitika has also been selected as an Astronaut Candidate to fly to space on both Titans Space Industries inaugural spaceplane and space station missions in 2029!
Gitika Gorthi is the Founder and CEO of IgnitedThinkers, a non-profit organization she founded in the 8th-grade to spread space education and her love for aerospace to all students (www.ignitedthinkers.org). Gitika is a freshman at Columbia University in the College of Engineering and Applied Science as a C. Prescott Davis Scholar. Gitika is an aspiring aerospace physician, medical researcher, and astronaut.
Through IgnitedThinkers, Gitika is working towards breaking the glass ceiling for minorities in the aerospace industry, incorporating more hands-on research space science-based activities into elementary education curriculums, and igniting the passions of all students by providing them the opportunity to explore and create. IgnitedThinkers' mission and vision statement are simple: to ignite, inform, and inspire students across the world.
Previously, Gitika conducted medical research at the Baylor College of Medicine Space Medicine Center, researched wind turbines at the University of Central Florida at Raghavan Research Group, and worked with professor Dr. Prasanta Pal from Brown University to develop telemedicine technology. Additionally, Gitika is a former NASA Ames Research Center GeneLab intern.
Currently, Gitika is a student researcher at Columbia Medical School Center for Radiological Research and an intern at the Kuo Lab in Columbia Medical School’s Research Center researching ataxia and tremor. Furthermore, Gitika is a member of the NASA GeneLab Animal Analysis Working Group doing bioinformatics data analysis. Gitika is also an incoming student researcher at Harvard Medical School’s in The Harvard Summer Research Program in Kidney Medicine.
Gitika is climbing towards her goal of going into aerospace medicine research. Gitika is extremely excited about the new understanding studying humans in space will bring to treat diseases here on Earth and the medical technological advancements that will occur on Earth with the greater utilization of telemedicine for deep-space exploration missions. Most recently, Gitika was named one of the Top 100 Women in Aerospace and Aviation Professionals to Follow on LinkedIn in 2022. The future of aerospace is exciting, and Gitika is working to make it a more diverse and equitable environment for everyone.
We look forward to hearing Gitika’s thoughts on how we might best prepare students for humanity’s future in space. A FREE ONLINE event, the summit brings together educators, enthusiasts, and professionals from many fields… to explore ways humanity might prepare for the growing space economy and a rapidly approaching multi-planet future. Our planning team is inspired by the Overview Effect, and a desire to help more people benefit from it here on Earth. See past sessions and highlights on our YouTube Channel.
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The event is produced in partnership with ARES Learning, EarthScape VR, The Human Space Program, and Ignited Thinkers.
