Chada Laohapongchana

When she was young, one of her favorite memories was the sound of the firecrackers, the smell of the delicious food, and being with her family on Chinese new year. However, 10 years later and 14284 kilometers away from home, she isn’t with her family every Chinese New Year but still finds a way to celebrate it away from home by enjoying the har gow (shrimp dumplings) at school and hanging out with other friends who are also celebrating but away from home. No matter where she physically is, she will always find a way to connect with her roots.

A global citizen in the making, Praow is engaged with a wide variety of activities to pursue long-term professional and personal growth. Her core subjects include physics, mathematics and economics. To build leadership experience, she is active as a STEM ambassador at her school, commits time to building the environmental club and plays tennis. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the guitar as well as dabbling in the arts through paintings.

Looking ahead, Praow would like to study aerospace or aeronautical engineering at university. Her interest in this area started at a young age when she first watched Interstellar and was captivated by the complex concepts involving astrophysics in the movie and the scenes of space. This inspired her to pursue education and a career relating to space. She explored her passion further with an Internship at a satellite operating company in Thailand called Thaicom where she learnt the basics of satellite operation and developed a new business model for the company.

After graduation, she aims to continue with this path, working in the space-tech industry at established companies such as SpaceX or emerging startups such as Hydrosat and Astroscale.