Service Through Science Amrutaa Vibho '26 Profile

Video title: “Service Through Science” | Amrutaa Vibho '26 Profile

[Audio Note: Reflective, driving instrumental background music with rhythmic percussion plays throughout the spoken narrative.]

[00:00]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: My name is Amrutaa Vibho. I'm from New Delhi, India. I am a Norwich University graduate of the class of 2026.

[00:07]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: That's the first time I've said that. My goal is to be the first woman of Indian origin, the first Norwich alum, to go to the moon, to step foot on the moon.

[01:08]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: So I grew up in the house next to Kalpana Chawla's house. The first Indian, or woman of Indian origin, to go to the International Space Station and be a NASA astronaut. She died on the Columbia shuttle disaster and I found that out when I was in my dad's home office and he had a little letter that was written by Kalpana's mother to the deceased Kalpana Chawla.

[01:29]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: And as a kid, you don't even know that there's space. Air seems endless. The sky seems endless. And as a kid being introduced to the fact that there is something beyond the seemingly under sky with that powerful of a concept, it really struck home.

[01:44]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: When COVID happened, I really didn't have anything that wasn't already shaped by my surroundings. I think I struggled with that a lot. I struggled with what is it that I want to do that wasn't a product of my surroundings. And did a lot of science in that time.

[02:03]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I did early college at Stanford, did early college summer sessions at Yale. Along the way, I found out about ROTC. Best thing that ever happened to me, because when you look up ROTC, Norwich has to come up, it's the birthplace.

[02:17]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Part of me didn't believe the U.S. existed because it was so out of my reach. And then getting to that point, I was like, my visa is not going to come through. Came through. I did zero research about what Norwich or Rookdom was. I just thought, this is my shot. I'm going to go for it.

[02:30]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I just remember sitting in JFK for the first time in four years, realizing the enormity of what I was choosing my life to be. I bawled for like six hours.

[02:43]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: And then at some point when we took that layover, and landed in Burlington, I was like, OK. If I'm going to be a military cadet, I have to change this.

[02:52]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I still remember people were grouping together for the last seven minutes when you get to say goodbye to your parents before walking off from Shapiro. I was looking at my phone and I texted my parents, OK, I guess this is it. I'll see you in a week when I get my phone call.

[03:08]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: And the drum beat, the marching, oh my God, I remember that so vividly. I was like, I don't even know if I don't want to do this. I can't even go back. What am I going to get into? It was amazing.

[03:26]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I made the conscious decision of staying in a Rook Company all four years, which is not a decision many people make because it's a difficult job. The difference I didn't know about was if you're cadre in any capacity, then you are doing it at 2x difficulty. Because if they're sprinting and you're making them run, you have to run faster. If they're waking up at five, you have to wake up at four. If they're going to bed at ten, you're going to bed at eleven.

[03:48]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: And so sophomore year, I was the guidon bearer for Hotel Company. And I loved carrying that guidon. And I said, that year that I had been guidon bearer, and I said, I will take this guidon to the moon. Because Hotel Company in the Corps of Cadets shaped me.

[04:04]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: My first research project from Norwich, we worked on detection methods of detecting uranium in drinking water using a $60 little Raspberry Pi based spectrophotometer and many colorimetric methods. So color changes, instead of someone who doesn't know science or chemistry, but is in a contaminated drinking water area. How do we make this technology accessible to them?

[04:26]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Being involved in such fundamental research, I didn't expect that Norwich would facilitate that. I mean, you don't. And I'm trying to change that. I want to be a proponent of people looking at Norwich and seeing it as the academic magnet that it is.

[04:36]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: The thing that I'm embracing most that Norwich taught me is service through science. I think the thing that I take away most from Norwich is anything we do, we value service in it.

[04:47]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I for the longest time thought that if I'm not going into the armed services, I wouldn't be of service. But Norwich taught me to embrace my uniqueness in the way that I want to engage with the community. And so that's going to be my aim for my life, is service through science.

[05:11]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Every year at Norwich, I think, was it felt like going back to Hogwarts. And it's true. Every year felt like a different episode in my life with a different thing I was struggling with. My freshman year was Rookdom.

[05:26]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Sophomore year, I was struggling to stay at college because between freshman and sophomore year, I had some unprecedented and unforeseen circumstances back at home because of which I lost my tuition support from my parents.

[05:42]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I didn't know if I was going to come back for that semester. So when I worked that summer, every penny was going to saving. Of course, the comparison doesn't exist. What I made as a research assistant versus what the tuition was is astronomically different.

[05:55]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: And then came to last day of sophomore year, final exams and I got an email. And Mr. Milano had generously offered me the Milano scholarship, which covered everything for junior year.

[06:12]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: They always say, "Feel the weight of those that came before you." I have never felt the weight of those that came before me more heavily than I did in that moment reading that email. Mr. Joseph Milano and Mrs. Milano have become like my fairy godmother and fairy godfather for saving me in that moment. That will never, ever, ever leave my brain.

[06:36]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: If I come into a position where I have the means, Norwich students, especially international students that want to be in the Corps of Cadets, I will make it my mission to support them in the way that Mr. Milano did for me.

[06:50]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Just water and the indicating chemicals that we are trying to work on to concentrate Uranium. I want to pursue a Ph.D. for sure. I want to double Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and astrophysics. I'm an incoming graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park. I'll be doing aerospace engineering Ph.D. with a specialization in space systems engineering and a minor in astronomy.

[07:15]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I think the thing I want next, for my next chapter is to end up working at NASA. I don't know how, but by the end of that four-to-five year graduate program, NASA is my next goal. So far I've been affiliated and worked with them on auxiliary positions. I want it to be the real deal.

[07:45]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Norwich isn't for everyone. Everything in life is hard. It depends on what kind of hard you choose. Norwich is a different kind of hard and it takes a very different kind of person to choose it. My only competition is myself. That's something I remind myself of every day.

[08:00]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: Norwich is a place where people are accomplished in a multitude of ways. Comparing yourself with them is not going to get me anywhere. So search for what makes you uncomfortable. Because when that moment, when you want to quit the most is more often than not right before you hit your eureka moment and be like, I can do this or get something out of it. So don't back down. Don't try to be anyone else. And your only competition is yourself.

[08:32]

Amrutaa Vibho '26: I am most grateful for Norwich for giving me myself back. I think it just fills me with so much emotion to think that a place would feel so much like home. When it is in fact, it couldn't be further removed from my home, right? Like on the other side of the world. Not my language, not my culture, not my food. Norwich showed me the good in the world again.