Last week former Disney Star, Bridgit Mendler, announced the startup of her newest industry tycoon, joining the space race, up against the likes of Elon Musk, SpaceX, and other competitors. Yup, you read that right.
Throughout her life, the all-in-one star has seen triumphs in every industry she’s tapped into: acting, singing, law, engineering – you name it. Now Mendler’s making promising moves in the space industry, but let’s take a look at how she got there in the first place.
Disney, and life ever after.
Starting in 2009, Brigit Mendler saw a rise to stardom with a budding career as a Disney child actress. Her first role was cast as the recurring character, ‘Juliette’ in the hit series Wizards of Waverly Place. From there, she would go on to have a successful acting portfolio as she continued to star in various Disney productions. One of Mendler’s most notable roles came from Good Luck, Charlie, a family sitcom that revolved around the life of the dysfunctionally functional and heartwarming Duncan household. In this series, Mendler played, ‘Teddy Duncan’, the lovable older sister who ended each episode with an iconic video diary for the titular character. Her portrayal of the role was a fan-favorite by viewers alike and rocketed the likeness of Mendler as an idol.
Following the path that many Disney actors paved when working for the network, Mendler also began to tap into the music industry alongside her acting career – especially following the release of the musical drama, Lemonade Mouth, in which she played as a lead-singer responsible for the catchy song, Determinate.
With the Good Luck, Charlie sitcom coming to an end after four successful seasons in 2014, Mendler announced her official departure from Disney that same year. Following this, while the actress starred in other network and cinematic productions, it seemed that Mendler wanted to break away from her Disney roots to take a more focused approach to her career as a musical artist. Since then, the former actress released three singles, and in 2016 she even performed a world tour for her EP, Nemesis.
Lights…Camera…Ph.d?
As the 2010s progressed, Mendler created a name for herself in the entertainment industry; already sitting atop a lucrative history of stardom, it was as if she was dominating the A-list lifestyle. But over time, it had seemed that Mendler wasn’t playing her usual supporting roles anymore, nor sharing any updates of new music releases. This absence from the spotlight left fans to speculate why she’d leave her throne of stardom ambitions. Had she already hit her peak? Was she fed up with living a celebutante lifestyle?
Quite the contrary, actually! Behind the scenes of the young celebrity socialite, Mendler had her hands full in taking up a new role – one that required less of the flashy lights, and more hitting the books.
Trading the entertainment industry for her love of education, Mendler pursued a double life as she dove into the college scene. In doing so, she achieved quite the occupational resume: a B.S in Anthropology from the University of Southern California (USC), an M.S and soon-to-be Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and even an in-progress J.D 3-year degree from Harvard Law!
Rightfully so, during her time at Harvard and MIT, Mendler stepped away from show-biz culture to focus on her dual degrees. The star would only occasionally post on social media platforms to showcase simple life updates and her impressive academic endeavors were only made public to fans through once-in-a-blue-moon casual Twitter posts that would announce every new achievement.
Likewise, the same approach had been taken upon the launch of her new space tycoon company, Northwood Space.
CEO Mendler chasing new frontiers.
On February 20th, Mendler announced that she had spent the last year working with engineer colleagues creating a space tycoon that aims to improve satellite backhaul – a tech savvy term that refers to the connection between satellite systems and cellular data, (similar to how our phones run on “5G” networks).
With Northwood Space, Mendler’s team hopes to develop satellite systems that promote an even more efficient connection between Earth’s telecommunications while gaining crucial research on Earth-Space relationships that have yet to be uncovered.
Northwood is on a mission to bring the benefits of space to the masses through innovations in space communications technology.”
Taken from the official Northwood Space website.
What’s cool about the launch of this company, is that we’re going to be able to witness it being built from the ground up – as prompted by the company’s team. This gives us a chance to see what kind of work goes into starting something so monumentally essential for space exploration, and how it’ll grow in years to come.
Additionally, the whole operation was founded by someone that every Gen-Z can recognize, a woman they grew up with through their television screens. Mendler being the face of Northwood Space may leave a more educational impact and new-found likeness on colloquially ‘boring’ subjects like engineering, and astronomy.
For now, Northwood Space is still a fresh company in the space tycoon market, but in due time I’m sure we’ll see great things come from their team and a whole demographic of young adults being inspired.
And who knows, maybe Brigit Mendler will hold her next concert on the moon.