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Picture This: Natalie Venginickal Redefines the Engineering Student Image

Headshot of Natalie Venginickal

Celebrate APIDA and SWANA Engineers

The Clark School felt like a “clear choice” for Natalie Venginickal, a junior electrical engineering major from Howard County: there are two other Terp electrical engineers in her immediate family—her father Paul Venginickal ’91 and her brother Nicholas Veninickal ’25. But she’s paved her own way, learning as early as elementary school that she can push herself beyond any expectations she—or anyone else—sets.

Internship fuels determination

Black-and-white satellite image of the eastern seaboard of North America

Venginickal’s favorite image from her internship at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

A dream internship at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) before her senior year of high school solidified her desire to pursue electrical engineering. At APL, she led a self-designed engineering project to build a software-defined weather station to receive radio signals from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites.

She and another intern, Clark School engineering junior Alex Patrone, decoded the captured data and processed it into images, “a cool way to see the tangible output of software-defined radios and radio frequency engineering.” Their best image? A totally unexpected “crystal-clear” image from Cuba in the south all the way past Nova Scotia to the north.

Working with APL mentors and Patrone, Venginickal calls the project “a testament to the power of collaboration in engineering.”

Thinking outside the box—and the country

In her three years as a Terp, she’s collaborated again and again to benefit her community and learning. With a group of like-minded peers, Venginickal is co-leading the Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering student organization first established at UMD in 2008 (and interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic). The renewed student organization grew to 115 members in its first semester and won the Clark School’s 2025 Women in Engineering (WIE) Leadership Award.

Natalie Venginickal with a Spanish city in the background

A selfie in Spain

For the last two years, Venginickal has served as a WIE peer mentor and as a facilitator of the WIE Code Virtual Coding Bootcamp; she’s also served as a storyteller for ClarkLEAD, where she spoke about trying new things to “diversify your friend group and community.”

Taking her own advice, she is currently studying in Spain with Clark in Madrid and enjoying soaking in the experience of another culture for five months, including visiting the iconic Prado Museum on a random Tuesday morning, a “very unique and valuable opportunity,” she says.

Taking a broad perspective

Natalie Venginickal poses with four other women, each wearing a purple ECE shirt

Venginickal and other leaders of UMD’s Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Outside of the Clark School, Venginickal is one of 10 Apple Next-Gen Innovators mentees on campus and appreciates getting the “big tech” perspective.

She participates in Ballroom at Maryland. (Her favorite dance is the tango.)

And she is heavily involved with Catholic Terps and the Catholic Student Center and leads a bible study and serves as a Mass lector.

Published April 1, 2026