Sandhana's Site
About Me
Hey! My name is Sandhana and this is my very own personal site! I'm in 10th grade, and I am in my school's selective Medical Science Academy. I want to work in space medicine research.
I'm the Lead Engineer for my diverse ROADS NESSP team (which is a competition based on real NASA-missions, and is supported by NASA as well. Last summer, we completed the 8 Mission Objectives + the extra one so well that we won a fully-funded trip to Kennedy Space Center for a week! We were the only team from the East Coast to win, 1/13 teams overall, and 1/8 middle school teams from the 300 that originally were in the competition. We saw 2 rocket launches, and explored Kennedy Space Center, Cocoa Beach, and Cape Canaveral Lighthouse.) which consists of students across 3 different grade levels and 6 different schools.
I am also a Rutgers STEM Ambassador for Atlantic County (2026 Cohort). During Kickoff Week, I got to work in a lab using micropipettes, a centrifuge, a homogenizer, and a spectrophotometer to determine if age or sex affected protein content in mice feces. I met many Rutgers professional, engineers, and scientists there as well. Currently, back in Atlantic County, I am working on founding an aerospace club to participate in the American Rocketry Challenge and other aerospace challenges, as well as doing a community assessment to develop an aerospace career curriculum to teach students about the wide variety of career paths within aerospace that aren't just becoming an astronaut, pilot, or aerospace engineer, especially since I want to go into a biology-focused sector. The Federal Aviation Administration is located in Atlantic County, yet countless of my peers simply have not been exposed to the many careers in this field like I have, and I want to show them that space isn't a niche that you can't break into.
Although I have stepped down from this role, I initiated a KidWind competition team in South Jersey. I competed solo in 7th grade and got 2nd place in the New Jersey KidWind Challenge middle school section, earning me a spot at KidWind Worlds. A student from Ocean County and I then competed there together, and we continued to work together on KidWind and ROADS into my 8th grade year. In 9th grade, another student from my district in 8th grade and another 9th grader from another district joined. Our team was diverse across 2 grade levels, 4 schools, and 3 districts. We competed at KidWind Worlds and did better than ever before with 40 joules, and we did very well in the Instant Challenges. It was a great period of my life, but I felt that I had to step down and focus on other activities.
On my Mock Trial team, last season I was a lawyer understudy for the prosecution side of the case. This year, I hope to become a lawyer and compete in the court. Last season, for the second time in school history, our team won the county competition and advanced to the state level.
I enjoy reading, volleyball, and everything related to space and science. On my volleyball team, I am an outside hitter.
Favorites
Favorite Artists
Favorite Albums
