As a student of the 49ers STEM Leadership Institute for the past six years, Serena Gandhi has developed strong leadership, collaboration, and communication skills through hands-on projects, mentorship, and community outreach opportunities.

Since 7th grade, Serena has built a variety of robots for science fair and engineering competitions, earning over 20 awards from major national organizations. She is also the Co-Captain of FIRST Tech Challenge Team (FTC) 19819, AstroBruins, which ranked as the #1 FTC team in California for three consecutive years and earned multiple awards at the FTC World Championship.

This past summer, Serena completed a NASA internship, where she contributed to AeroPulse, a drone-based medical delivery system later published as a NASA Technical Memorandum.

Outside the classroom, Serena is dedicated to community outreach and STEM engagement. She recently earned the Girl Scout Gold Award after 13 years in the Girl Scouts program, serves as President of Santa Clara High School’s Key Club, and co-leads SLI’s Service Learning and Mentorship (SLAM) STEM program.

In her free time, Serena enjoys singing pop songs, playing the guitar, and reading. She is grateful for the opportunities SLI has provided and hopes to continue exploring engineering, research, and community impact in the future.