When I was a fry cook’s son, the first in my family to go to an Ivy league college, I didn’t just get a full-ride scholarship.
To me it was like a ticket to outer space. Though it’s hard to say who was the alien. The kids I met from the expensive prep schools. Or me.
That was my lens watching Richard Branson’s PR stunt this past weekend.
For the record there was one person of color on board Branson’s flight on Sunday. One out of six? The numbers still don’t sound terribly diverse. So thank God for Sirisha Bandla.
Bandla, 34, immigrated with her family from India as a young girl when her father, an academic, came to America. Bandla grew up with a love of science and went on to Purdue to study aeronautical engineering, then got an MBA. She’s now the vice president of Virgin’s government affairs and research operations.
On this latest voyage, Bandla was actually doing some research on microgravity, according to the New York Times. She was conducting an experiment form the University of Florida that looked at how plants react to changes in gravity.
On Sunday, after getting her wings, and popping champagne like a Super Bowl champ, Bandla was taken from behind by Branson, who went underneath Bandla’s legs to lift her up on his shoulders and carry her off the stage. (Hello, Virgin H.R. department? )
