05/27/2026
Calling all Nerds🗣️ We are pleased to welcome Bridgit Mendler into KDHRC’s Nerd of the Month Club, inspired by National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’s Jelly of the Month Club!
Bridgit Mendler is especially well known among Gen-Zer’s, as her career started on Disney Channel! She starred in ‘Good Luck Charlie’ and ‘Lemonade Mouth’ and made other appearances in family friendly shows and movies. She also began her musical career with her debut studio album released in 2012. Her entertainment career continued as she worked on her anthropology degree at the University of Southern California, although she did not complete her degree. One day, her uncle took her to visit the MIT Media Lab— a research facility focused on tech, media, design, and human behavior. She said she had missed the space to explore new ideas, an opportunity many people experience in college that she had missed.
She enrolled in their master’s program studying media & online discourse when she found herself captivated by the space projects other students were working on. She met her now-husband at MIT and when the pandemic hit, they were working on communication satellites and software. Then in 2021 she enrolled in Harvard Law School studying space law, despite having no undergraduate degree. Then in 2023, Dr. Mendler passed up a SpaceX internship and launched Northwood Space with her husband. Northwood translates the data floating in outer space satellites into something that can actually be used on earth.
In an interview she gave with ‘The Free Press’ earlier this year, Mendler admitted: “I actually don’t think that I’m very smart and probably people that know me would think the same thing.” Her success is thanks to her determination, which she has carried from her days on Disney Channel to owning her own company. She says, “If I want to do it, I will find a way to make myself do it.” Mendler embodies the KDHRC core values and she is clearly fitting in with the KDHRC . Stay tuned for next month and send in your nominations!