Bridgit Mendler has expanded her professional portfolio with a significant new position. Recently, the 31-year-old former Disney Channel actress and Harvard graduate revealed on X, formerly Twitter, that she will be taking on the role of CEO at Northwood Space. This startup is dedicated to establishing a «data highway» linking Earth and space.
Her path from Disney Channel star to space startup CEO started with an accident.
At 31 years old, Bridgit Mendler holds the position of CEO and co-founder at Northwood Space, a company based in El Segundo, California, which focuses on the mass production of ground stations, also known as antennas, for space satellite communication. This represents a significant departure from her previous career as a child actor and singer, renowned for her roles in Disney Channel productions like Good Luck Charlie and Lemonade Mouth.
«While everybody else was making their sourdough starters, we were building antennas out of random materials we could find at Home Depot and receiving data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites,» Mendler shared when announcing her startup. She added, «For me, why the ground-side matters is because it actually is about bringing the impacts of space home to people.»
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/East News
Despite her continued presence in acting until 2019, Mendler’s journey into this new career began over a decade ago when she inadvertently selected anthropology on her University of Southern California college application.
«I’m studying anthropology,» Mendler revealed on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2015. «But it was an accident… I was doing the application all on my own. I think I didn’t really understand how it worked. I put down like five different things that I would potentially want to be in as a major, and I got my acceptance letter, and it’s like, ‘You’re in anthropology.’»
This academic field resonated with her, leading her to pursue a master’s degree in humanity and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as noted on her LinkedIn profile.
Currently, she is engaged in completing PhD and juris doctor programs, as she mentioned in a post on the social media platform X on March 7, «I am 2 months away from a JD and I don’t already have a PhD. The PhD is something I started working towards in 2020, and I pursued it jointly with my law degree but when I moved to California last summer and decided that for family reasons we would stay on the West Coast, it had to go on pause.»
«My mom’s an architect and my dad designs car engines. So there was a lot of math-y science-y talk when I was a kid,» Mendler shared in 2018, speaking about her upbringing, which contributes to her work at Northwood.
Together with her husband, Griffin Cleverly, and head of software Shaurya Luthra, Mendler co-founded Northwood. The startup has already attracted significant attention from venture capital investors, securing $6.3 million in initial funding.
Mendler highlighted the impressive backgrounds of some of Northwood’s early employees, with experience at companies such as SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Northrop Grumman. «At Northwood, we’re rethinking infrastructure for satellite backhaul from the ground up. We have our sights on building a data highway between earth and space,» Mendler emphasized in her LinkedIn post, signaling the ambitious goals of the company.
Becoming a CEO wasn’t the only major life update.
In a surprising revelation to her fans, Mendler shared in a post that she is a mother to a 4-year-old boy, «The other news I wanted to share is I’m a mama to a sweet 4yo boy. Started fostering in 2021 adopted near Christmas of 2022. I’m so lucky, being a parent is the biggest gift and most defining experience there is. That’s my news for now folks.»
Preview photo credit
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/East News, Gilbert Flores/Broadimage/EAST NEWS
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