NEWS:As Clemson doctoral candidate dabbles in competitive skydiving……. Read more 

Sriya Pothapragada has her head in the clouds.

Pothapragada is a doctoral candidate at Clemson University studying genetics. Her week revolves around dissertation research, which she’s tailored to involve evolutionary genetics and biology with the hope of eventually applying it to a career as an astrobiologist.

On the weekends, she jumps out of planes. She’s pretty good at it, too.

So far, Pothapragada has completed 61 jumps and recently competed in the USPA National Collegiate Skydiving Championships in Zephyrhills, Florida.

She came to Clemson in 2023 after majoring in bioengineering at the University of Maryland. Upon her arrival to the Upstate, she had two goals: Work with her adviser — James Lewis, a professor of genetics and biochemistry — and obtain her first skydiving license.

She credits Lewis’s approach as an advisor with her ability to work toward both goals, in spite of the intensity of each discipline.

“I value almost equally the skills you get from stuff like skydiving, especially in flying, like self-accountability, discipline, common sense,” she said. “My reflexes have gotten better. I’m in better physical shape.”

Acrophobia and aerophobia are among the most common fears in the world, and skydiving is a sport most people won’t do even once.

Pothapragada said during one of her earliest solo jumps, a static-line jump, she was overwhelmed by the force of the propeller and fell out of the plane. Her parachute was out before she realized what happened.

I’m good,” she said with a laugh, explaining that the instinctual fear dissipates over time. It was around her sixth or seventh jump that she began to feel more in control and aware of her surroundings.

A pivot she hopes to make in her study of genetics and astrobiology is that of extremophiles — organisms that can adapt to conditions of high heat, hypoxic or otherwise extreme or unlivable environments — for the possibility of engineering beings that may help in the exploration of space.

The word “extremophile” is derived from the Latin word “extremus,” translating to extreme, and the Greek word “philia” meaning love.

Skydiving is an extreme sport, and Pothapragada loves all things aviation. She is what she studies — one who thrives while falling 2 miles from the sky.