Akshata Krishnamurthy

Akshata Krishnamurthy is a space systems engineer working as Science Phase Lead at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Born in India, Krishnamurthy has worked on Mars 2020, NISAR, TESS and ASTERIA missions.

Education
Krishnamurthy was born in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, and completed her schooling and undergraduate education there before moving to the United States to pursue a Master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Krishnamurthy earned her PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her PhD research focused on instrument calibration and performance improvement for space-based telescope missions for exoplanet detection, and was used in two space missions, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA). Krishnamurthy and her colleagues discovered several exoplanets, and characterized HD 59640 to be an eruptive variable stars with flares. Other projects included the Mars 2020 Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE).

At MIT, she was the President of the Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (GA^3) student organization., and Co-Chair of the MIT India Conference

Career
Krishnamurthy interned at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the ASTERIA mission while working on her PhD. Following graduation, Krishnamurthy got a full-time position as a systems engineer and science data system lead at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She started as systems engineer on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission and continued to become the Science Phase Lead leading planning, development and testing for nominal science operations. Krishnamurthy is a Robotic Operations Systems Engineer working on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission Robotic Operations and Principal Investigator on a Strategic University Research Program with MIT. Previously, Krishnamurthy served as Instrument Engineer on NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and as co-investigator on ASTERIA missions.ASTERIA is the smallest telescope to ever detect an exoplanet.

Recognitions

 * In September 2017, Krishnamurthy was awarded the Luigi G. Napolitano Award by the International Astronautical Federation at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia for her outstanding contributions to aerospace science.
 * In 2018, she was awarded Dr. Robbin Chapman Excellence Through Adversity Award by MIT Office of Graduate Education.
 * In July 2018, Krishnamurthy was awarded the Amelia Earhart Fellowship by the Zonta International Foundation.
 * In September 2018, she was awarded the Emerging Space Leader Award by International Astronautical Federation.
 * In 2019, Krishnamurthy was awarded MIT Graduate Woman of Excellence Award.
 * In March 2019, she was Invited Speaker at the Apollo 50+50: This Generation's Space Program at MIT.
 * Krishnamurthy is also a 5-time Schlumberger Faculty for the Future Fellow.
 * In April 2021, Krishnamurthy and her colleagues received the NASA Group Achievement Award for ingenious use of a CubeSat ASTERIA to perform key scientific investigations. ASTERIA also won the 2018 NASA Small Satellite Mission of the Year Award.
 * In 2021, Krishnamurthy was featured in the Space and Satellite Professionals International, SSPI's 20 under 35 list of top space professionals to watch.

She motivates millions of young students all over the world by sharing her journey as an immigrant on a visa in the United States, on Instagram, and persevering in the face of obstacles to achieve her dreams of working on space projects at NASA. Her goal is to inspire millions of people to dream big and live their best lives.

Selected Publications

 * Peter Plavchan, Thomas Barclay, Jonathan Gagné, Peter Gao, Bryson Cale, William Matzko, Diana Dragomir,..Krishnamurthy et al. "A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii." Nature 582, no. 7813 (2020): 497-500.
 * Günther, Maximilian N., Zhuchang Zhan, Sara Seager, Paul B. Rimmer, Sukrit Ranjan, Keivan G. Stassun, Ryan J. Oelkers,,..Krishnamurthy et al. "Stellar flares from the first TESS data release: exploring a new sample of M dwarfs." The Astronomical Journal 159, no. 2 (2020): 60.
 * Rodriguez, Joseph E., Samuel N. Quinn, Chelsea X. Huang, Andrew Vanderburg, Kaloyan Penev, Rafael Brahm, Andrés Jordán,..Krishnamurthy et al. "An eccentric massive jupiter orbiting a subgiant on a 9.5-day period discovered in the transiting exoplanet survey satellite full frame images." The Astronomical Journal 157, no. 5 (2019): 191.
 * Knapp, Mary, Sara Seager, Brice-Olivier Demory, Krishnamurthy, Matthew W. Smith, Christopher M. Pong, Vanessa P. Bailey et al. "Demonstrating high-precision photometry with a CubeSat: ASTERIA observations of 55 Cancri e." The Astronomical Journal 160, no. 1 (2020): 23.
 * Guerrero, Natalia M., S. Seager, Chelsea X. Huang, Andrew Vanderburg, Aylin Garcia Soto, Ismael Mireles, Katharine Hesse,..Krishnamurthy et al. "The tess objects of interest catalog from the tess prime mission." The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 254, no. 2 (2021): 39.
 * Lendl, Monika, François Bouchy, Samuel Gill, Louise D. Nielsen, Oliver Turner, Keivan Stassun, Jack S. Acton,..Krishnamurthy et al. "TOI-222: a single-transit TESS candidate revealed to be a 34-d eclipsing binary with CORALIE, EulerCam, and NGTS." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 492, no. 2 (2020): 1761-1769.
 * Davis, Allen B., Songhu Wang, Matias Jones, Jason D. Eastman, Maximilian N. Günther, Keivan G. Stassun, Brett C. Addison,..Krishnamurthy et al. "TOI 564 b and TOI 905 b: grazing and fully transiting hot Jupiters discovered by TESS." The Astronomical Journal 160, no. 5 (2020): 229.
 * Sha, Lizhou, Chelsea X. Huang, Avi Shporer, Joseph E. Rodriguez, Andrew Vanderburg, Rafael Brahm, Janis Hagelberg,..Krishnamurthy et al. "TOI-954 b and K2-329 b: Short-period Saturn-mass Planets that Test whether Irradiation Leads to Inflation." The Astronomical Journal 161, no. 2 (2021): 82.
 * MacKenzie, Shannon M., Tess E. Caswell, Charity M. Phillips-Lander, E. Natasha Stavros, Jason D. Hofgartner, Vivian Z. Sun, Kathryn E. Powell,..Krishnamurthy et al. "THEO concept mission: testing the habitability of Enceladus's Ocean." Advances in Space Research 58, no. 6 (2016): 1117-1137.
 * Krishnamurthy, Mary Knapp, Maximilian N. Günther, Tansu Daylan, Brice-Olivier Demory, Sara Seager, Vanessa P. Bailey et al. "Transit Search for Exoplanets around Alpha Centauri A and B with ASTERIA." The astronomical journal 161, no. 6 (2021): 275.
 * Seager, Sara, Mary Knapp, Brice-Olivier Demory, Krishnamurthy, Chelsea X. Huang, Mariona Badenas Agusti, Avi Shporer et al. "HD 219134 Revisited: Planet d Transit Upper Limit and Planet f Transit Nondetection with ASTERIA and TESS." The astronomical journal 161, no. 3 (2021): 117.
 * Krishnamurthy, Joel Villasenor, Sara Seager, George Ricker, and Roland Vanderspek. "Precision characterization of the TESS CCD detectors: Quantum efficiency, charge blooming and undershoot effects." Acta Astronautica 160 (2019): 46-55.