Ritu’s background is in Aerospace Engineering through which she got to design, build and analyze commercial satellite trajectories, do telemetry data analysis and perform ground, navigation and control (GNC). She enjoys doing model simulations through computational fluid dynamics and data analysis. She has always been specifically interested in Electric Propulsion of satellites, which uses Plasma Physics concepts. With COFFIES Teams, she wants to bridge similarities/differences between laboratory plasma applications and solar plasma behavior. She is interested to be involved in the research community of Plasma Physics/Heliophysics studies in COFFIES to predict solar flares, CMEs, etc., that affect space weather and in turn affect satellite performances.

At COFFIES, she is involved with the Convection, Dynamo and Model Integration teams, where she hopes to use her prior experiences in model dynamic simulations to apply to solar plasma physics understandings. She is a part of the Helioseismology Team where she hopes to be involved in large scale data analyses and solar experimental visualizations.

Ritu loves mentoring younger generations in STEAM fields. Ritu is an avid bookworm and loves bookstores and libraries. She enjoys hiking, singing and flying.