Team

Rachana Agrawal, PhD 

Rachana Agrawal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She earned her PhD in astronautics from Purdue University and did her Postdoctoral work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a researcher in space mission engineering with specialization in astrodynamics and systems engineering. In particular, her work involves designing and analyzing end-to-end mission concepts, systems engineering, and sub-system development and prototyping for planetary missions, including both robotic and human exploration architectures. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT where she spearheaded the mission design for a series of groundbreaking astrobiology-focused missions aimed at detecting signs of life in the cloud of Venus, led by Prof. Sara Seager at MIT. She obtained her PhD from Purdue University and BTech/MTech from IIT Bombay in Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Agrawal has extensive research experience in human and robotic planetary mission design (modelling, simulations, analysis) through her PhD and Postdoc work, as well as space robotics and systems engineering experience through projects such as NASA’s COLDTech and developing instrument prototypes for the Venus mission. 

Shalini Suresh

Shalini Suresh is a PhD student in the Depart of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Kanpur.