Keynote Speech

Tim Shephard is the Lockheed Martin Space Vice President for Enterprise Strategy, based in Colorado, focused on the firm’s defense, intelligence, civil and commercial space portfolios. His current role leverages his experience driving revenue growth while building exceptional self-selecting teams, accountable to P&L leadership through an annual contract of clearly defined deliverables.

Prior to December 2022, Tim was responsible for leading the business development function at Lockheed Martin Space. Over the past 30 years, Tim has helped guide his aerospace and defense business teams in both domestic and international campaigns in aviation, space, intelligence, and armaments. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, Tim was Orbital ATK’s first corporate international vice president. He organized their international strategy and business development, creating a billion dollars of new international revenue. Prior to joining Orbital ATK, Tim spent 16 years with Northrop Grumman. His last role at Northrop was as the regional vice president of a 110-country Euro-Americas region, headquartered in Brussels. Tim currently serves as the Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Executive Champion to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Tim holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He earned his BA degree in Modern History from Oxford University.

Keynote Speech

Dr. Erika Wagner serves as Senior Director of Emerging Market Development for Blue Origin, a developer of vehicles and technologies to enable human space transportation.

Prior to joining Blue Origin, Dr. Wagner worked with the X PRIZE Foundation as Senior Director of Exploration Prize Development and founding Executive Director of the X PRIZE Lab@MIT. Previously, she served at MIT as Science Director and Executive Director of the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program, a multi-university spacecraft development initiative to investigate the physiological effects of reduced gravity. Erika has previously served as a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s Suborbital Applications Researchers Group, the Board of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, and NASA’s Planetary Protection Independent Review Board. Today, she serves as a Trustee of the Museum of Flight as well as a member of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board.

Dr. Wagner’s interdisciplinary academic background includes a bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, a master’s in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT, and a PhD in Bioastronautics from the Harvard/MIT division of Health Sciences and Technology. Her research spanned both human and mammalian adaptation to microgravity, partial gravity, and centrifugation, as well as organizational innovation and prize theory. She is also an alumna of the International Space University and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Panel: Beyond LEO

Dr. Kevin Duda is a Senior Space Systems Program Manager and Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Draper Laboratory.  Kevin has been at Draper for over 15 years, and his previous role was Technical Lead for Lunar Landing programs at the Lab.  Kevin got his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and S.M. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

Blair is the cofounder and CEO of Lunar Station. Blair’s career is anchored on building great teams that tackle emerging market challenges by creatively developing advanced technologies for the betterment of the communities he serves. Blair has worked at NASA, IBM, TIBCO, EMC, Psion, and many other organizations holding various roles and responsibilities throughout his industrious career. Volunteerism is the second core tenant of his personality and has given his energies to helping others in many different groups and organizations over the years.

Blair completed his under-graduate degree from St. Thomas Aquinas College and recently earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Ryan is the managing editor of Payload, a modern media brand covering the next chapter of space exploration and commercialization. He leads Payload's newsroom and hosts the company's popular Pathfinder podcast. Previously, Ryan was an early employee at Morning Brew, where he started the company's second product and helped scale it to 300,000+ subscribers. Ryan's writing has appeared in the New York Times, Fast Company, Texas Tribune, and the Verge, among other publications.

Dr. Forrest Meyen is a Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of the space robotics company, Lunar Outpost. Lunar Outpost is the dominate provider of commercial planetary surface mobility. Forrest directs company commercialization strategy as well as technical leadership on key flight programs. He is currently leading Lunar Outpost’s team developing the MAPP Rover for their 2023 lunar exploration mission to Shackleton connecting ridge. This mission will be the first rover in history to explore at the lunar south pole region. Before Lunar Outpost, Dr. Meyen worked at Draper leading the avionics systems engineering of multiple lunar landers. He also was a program manager of Draper’s Sembler office dedicated to startup collaborations and commercialization. Dr. Meyen earned his doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Aeronautics and Astronautics for his contributions to the design of the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE). He continues MOXIE operations as a member of the NASA Perseverance Rover science team. Dr. Meyen’s vision is to create an economically impactful lunar society by leveraging commercial robotics and the utilization of space resources.

Panel: Commercial LEO

Dr. Solange Massa is the founder and CEO of Ecoatoms. Ecoatoms develops payloads for microgravity manufacturing focusing on the biotech and medtech industries. She was previously the Lead Investment Fellow at Life Science Angels and before that she was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. She hold and MD and a PhD and did her doctoral research work at Harvard-MIT Health Science & Technology. For this work she was named MIT Innovator under 35 and Women at the Frontier. Her research work has been featured in TEDx, MIT Technology Review, BBC, Wired and numerous scientific journals.

Dr. Ariel Ekblaw is the founder and CEO of Aurelia Institute, where she strives to bring humanity’s space exploration future to life. Through architecture R&D, education and outreach, and policy thought leadership, she is building a remarkable team and a novel FRO (Focused Research Organization) to expand humanity’s horizons and scale life in space.

Aurelia Institute is spun out of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative (SEI)—a team of over 50 graduate students, staff, and faculty actively prototyping the artifacts of our sci-fi space future—of which Ariel is also the founder and Director. Ariel drives SEI’s space-related research across science, engineering, art, and design, and leads an annually recurring cadence of parabolic flights, sub-orbital launches, and missions to the International Space Station.  

Ariel is the author/editor of Into the Anthropocosmos: A Whole Space Catalog from the MIT Space Exploration Initiative (MIT Press 2021). She serves on the NASA Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) Executive Committee, guiding and shaping the coming decade of burgeoning activity on the moon. Ariel has had the rare honor and pleasure of working directly on space hardware that now operates on the surface of Mars and is leading MIT's To the Moon To Stay mission.

Ariel graduated with a B.S. in Physics, Mathematics and Philosophy from Yale University and designed a novel space architecture habitat for her MIT PhD in autonomously self-assembling space structures. Her research work and the lab she leads builds towards future habitats and space stations in orbit around the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Ariel and her work have been featured in WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, CNN, NPR, PRI’s Science Friday, IEEE and AIAA proceedings, and more. 

Equally comfortable in a boardroom, a machine shop, or free-floating in the middle of a zero-gravity parabola, Ariel drives innovation, entrepreneurship, and research at the forefront of space exploration. As the daughter of two US Air Force Pilots, Ariel developed a deep commitment to the service model of leadership at a young age, and followed in her mother’s glass-ceiling breaking footsteps (Maj. Ekblaw was one of the country’s first female instructor pilots). With a deep family history of extreme environment exploration, including the Ekblaw Glacier in the Arctic and Mt. Ekblaw in Antarctica named after her great-grandfather, Ariel looks forward to galvanizing exploration at the vanguard of humanity's horizons—from Low Earth Orbit to other celestial bodies.

Virgil Hutchinson serves as the Chief Engineering Director for the Space Systems Sector at Northrop Grumman. In this role, Virgil leverages his experience to ensure technical execution of the sector’s critical programs. He works to enhance the sector’s engineering function through broad, strategic thinking, and assists with the efforts to identify, attract, and retain engineers with critical skills.

Since joining Northrop Grumman heritage company Orbital Sciences in 2005, Virgil has held several roles of increasing responsibility driving innovation across the engineering and technology functions. Most recently, he led the sector’s’ engineering efforts for digital transformation, guiding the planning and execution of transformation roadmaps and initiatives to enable integrated digital technologies and build a digital culture. Previously, Virgil served as director of Systems Engineering for the Space Systems sector’s Tactical Space Systems division, and as the Chief Innovation and Technology Architect for the division’s Civil and Commercial Satellites business unit.

 Virgil holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

S. Sita Sonty is Partner and Associate Director for Aerospace and Defense with Boston Consulting Group. Sita previously made history as Head of Human Spaceflight at SpaceX, where she executed the first private spaceflight sales on the Crew Dragon on a Lower Earth Orbit Free Flyer and to the International Space Station. Sita concurrently guided global market strategy for Starlink's expansion. Sita also held roles as Vice President for Global Strategy with Sierra Nevada Corporation and Director for National Security and Foreign Military Sales at Raytheon. She amassed almost two decades of service as a career U.S. diplomat, with assignments in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Croatia.

Matt Weinzierl is the Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  His research focuses on the optimal design of economic policy, in particular taxation, with an emphasis on better understanding the philosophical principles underlying policy choices. Recently, he has launched a set of research projects focused on the commercialization of the space sector and its economic implications, viewable at www.economicsofspace.com and he teaches a course on the economics and business of the sector at HBS.

Panel: Earth observation

Stéphane Germain founded GHGSat in 2011 to answer a market need for consistent, high-quality measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities worldwide. Mr. Germain has been passionate about applying space technology for the good of the Earth for over 30 years. He started his career as an engineer and project manager at Spar Aerospace, followed by several years as a consultant with Bain & Company, a leading international strategy consulting firm. He then held senior management positions in both small and large Canadian aerospace companies before turning to entrepreneurship in the 2010s.

Dr. Peter Wegner is chief technology officer at BlackSky, where he leads BlackSky’s efforts to develop a world-class multi-sensor geospatial intelligence engine. Peter oversees the company’s engagements with strategic stakeholders, ensuring customer needs are aligned with BlackSky’s business imperatives and investments. Prior to BlackSky, Peter was the director of advanced concepts at Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory, where he directed investments in new technologies. He also served as director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Operationally Responsive Space Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, where he directed the creation of a national strategy to develop new and innovative techniques to design, build, test, and operate space systems. Peter also served as the technical advisor to the Air Force Space Command Directorate of Requirements and a research engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, where he developed key innovations such as the ESPA ring. Peter holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wyoming. He also holds a Master of Science Degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical/Space Engineering from the University of Arizona.

Lydia Lihui Zhang is a Business Development Specialist at Planet Labs, where she helps connect space for the betterment of Earth. Previously she was a data scientist at Mckinsey ACRE and a M.S graduate from MIT Technology Policy Program. Originally from Shenzhen, China, she has found her passion in space taking her to many places, including the International Space University, International Telecommunication Union, DJI, Agriculture, and currently Planet. Geospatial data and its broader impact on business and sustainability is the keen focus of her career growth at the moment.  

Anushka Prasad is a Business Operations and Strategy specialist at Capella Space, working with the executive team supporting Capella’s scale and growth. She is also a Venture Partner with Syndicate708, evaluating and investing in early-stage companies in space and deep tech. Before Capella, Anushka worked in venture capital, focusing on investments in EdTech and the future of work. Anushka has an MBA and an M.S. from the Wharton School and UPenn’s Graduate School of Education. Anushka’s passion for space comes from the desire to contribute to industries working for the national interest. Before business school, Anushka was a part of the founding team building India’s first liberal arts university – Ashoka University.

Aravind is the founder of TerraWatch Space, a strategic advisory and communications firm, specialising in Earth observation, satellite data and its applications. Based in France, Aravind works on strategic assignments with space agencies, NewSpace startups and private investors, while also working with organisations across sectors in supporting their adoption of Earth observation data. With a multidisciplinary background and over a decade of cross-functional experience across software and space sectors, he is an expert in strategy, market analysis, business modeling, space tech, satellite data and applications. Aravind is also the author of the TerraWatch Space newsletter and the host of TerraWatch Space podcast, both aimed at demystifying Earth observation for all.

Panel: International Space

Dr. Sydney Do is a Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he supports multiple current and future Mars missions. He currently serves as Landing Site Selection Lead for the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign, aimed at collecting and launching selected rock samples from the surface of Mars and returning them to Earth for further study. Recently, he coordinated the successful construction of Three Forks Sample Depot, where ten samples were carefully deposited on the Martian surface for potential future return to Earth. In addition, Sydney serves as a Tactical Downlink Systems Engineer for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, where he supports the day-to-day assessment of rover health to inform tactical mission planning. In between these active missions, he manages NASA’s Mars Water Mapping Projects, a multi-year series of studies aimed at mapping water distribution across Mars to inform landing site selection for future human missions. He holds Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in Aerospace Systems Engineering from MIT, and a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Sydney, Australia. Previously, he has worked in human Mars mission design, space habitation and life support, and crewed spacecraft landing systems.

Dr. Minoo Rathnasabapathy is a Research Engineer at the MIT Media Lab, and Project Fellow, Future of Space at the World Economic Forum. Her work is centered at the intersection of space technology, policy, and action-driven partnerships to tackle pressing socio-economic and environmental challenges. Dr. Rathnasabapathy’s focus and research interests include space sustainability and governance, climate, and broader cross-industry collaborations. Her work has featured on CNN Business, BBC World News, and ABC News Australia. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Rathnasabapathy served as the Executive Director of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), a global non-governmental organisation which acts in support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications, based in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Rathnasabapathy was responsible for leading the operations, business development, strategy, and policy output for SGAC, a network that represents over 15,000 individual members across 150 countries.

Lydia Lihui Zhang is a Business Development Specialist at Planet Labs, where she helps connect space for the betterment of Earth. Previously she was a data scientist at Mckinsey ACRE and a M.S graduate from MIT Technology Policy Program. Originally from Shenzhen, China, she has found her passion in space taking her to many places, including the International Space University, International Telecommunication Union, DJI, Agriculture, and currently Planet. Geospatial data and its broader impact on business and sustainability is the keen focus of her career growth at the moment.  

Rikhi is a system safety engineer working on autonomous air-taxis at Wisk Aero in San Francisco, California. Compelled by the Malaysian Airlines disappearance in 2014, she has been in the pursuit of making 'flying things' even safer. Rikhi is the host and founder of ‘The Leadership, Equity, and Wellness Pod’ podcast, and founder of Singapore’s first ‘women leaders in aerospace’ conference.  As a content creator and journaling workshop leader for students around the world, Rikhi advocates for the well-being of the next generation of STEM leaders. Her workshop, “Personal Development Tools for the Next-Generation of Aerospace Leaders”, has been held in Scotland, Lebanon, Morocco, Mexico, and the United States at Georgia Tech, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and the Brooke Owens Fellowship. Rikhi is an Aviation Week 20 Twenties Laureate, a Brooke Owens Fellow and Singapore Global Network’s ‘Singaporean Women to Watch’ in 2022. She holds a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech.

Dan Erkel is a British-Hungarian space systems engineer and doctoral candidate at the Engineering Systems Lab at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Dan’s research focuses on small satellites, commercial space stations, and successful space strategies in emerging space nations. He previously worked for nearly half a decade as a spacecraft engineer at Airbus Defence and Space UK—also spending some time in secondment at the German and French branches of the European aerospace conglomerate—and was the lead technical author of an emerging space nation’s space strategy as well as the technical author of a space-focused venture capital fund’s investment strategy. Last year, Dan was in the final handful of candidates in ESA’s 2022 astronaut selection.

Panel: Startups and spacs

Richard French leads business development and strategy for Rocket Lab’s space systems division, providing end-to-end mission services and on-orbit operations with the company’s Photon family of small spacecraft and high-end satellite components including propulsion, reaction wheels, star trackers, avionics, solar arrays, and more. Richard spent over a decade at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he led development of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator program and managed technology partnerships with industry in the Office of Space Technology. He also spent two years on detail to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as a Staff Technologist in the Space Technology Mission Directorate. Richard’s earlier career includes service as an engineer on various NASA missions, including being awarded the NASA Honors Early Career Public Achievement Medal for his work as a lead mechanical systems engineer on the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, and helping to land the Curiosity Rover on Mars as a member of the Mars Science Laboratory entry, descent, and landing systems engineering team. Richard holds a Masters degree in Space Systems Engineering and a Bachelors degree in Aerospace Engineering, both from the University of Michigan.

Jordan Wachs is the Director for Business Development at SpaceRake. He received a B.S. with majors in Physics as well as Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011, an M.E. in Electrical Engineering, specializing in photonics and optical physics, from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2017, and a M.S. in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2022. He was awarded a 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fellowship to investigate the use of optical frequency comb-based interferometers in the detection and observation of exoplanets and a 2019 Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) SPARK grant to study novel imaging systems using micro photonics at l'Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Professionally, he has led or supported all phases of the aerospace lifecycle from low-TRL R&D to operation of multi-billion dollar satellite systems for the US Government. He worked at Ball Aerospace until 2019, where he supported on-orbit operations for the Joint Polar Satellite System (now NOAA 20), systems engineering for JWST, and established a first of its kind laser system laboratory for ultra precise communication and metrology. He routinely facilitated collaborative efforts for technology development between academia, the US government, and large and small businesses both foreign and domestic. These efforts include small satellite formation flying constellation architectures, optical physics demonstrations, and SBIR-funded space-robotics demonstrations. He worked as a technical program manager at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory until 2022 serving DARPA, NASA, the US Space Force, and classified customers. He fostered interagency cooperation and advancement of technologies, including multiple with commercially viable dual-use applications. Additionally, he supported small companies in successful SBIR/STTR efforts to advance technologies in the commercial space arena. He joined SpaceRake in 2022, where he is working to enable the small satellite industry to deliver more value to stakeholders on Earth by streamlining the flow of data from orbit to users on the ground using a new laser communication technology developed through collaboration with academics and industry experts.

Jeromy is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rogue Space Systems Corporation.  He started his career in the US Army, where he specialized in missile guidance systems for both ground and air defense platforms. Since then, he’s attended Harvard University’s School of Extension Studies where he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Government and International Relations, respectively.  After founding and running a successful technology services company, Jeromy founded Rogue Space Systems Corporation in 2020 and brought his expertise in AI, tech, and robotics to advance space systems, orbital vehicles, and space services.

Jyotsna Budideti is the co-founder and CEO of SpaceSense.ai, a Spacetech-AI company on its path to make satellite imagery intelligence mainstream. Intelligence from satellite imagery is one of the core capabilities that will help communities and organisations adapt to climate change, and her objective is to make it available for everyone. Before creating SpaceSense, she was creating ML/AI solutions for autonomous flight at Airbus at its HQ in Toulouse, France and was also part of the Technology roadmapping team headed by Prof. Olivier de Weck (MIT Aero-Astro). Born in India, passion for tech and education took her to the US & Europe. Outside of her work at SpaceSense, she is a strong advocate for Women in Tech and volunteers with multiple organizations like TechupAfrica, Women in Geospatial and Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC).

panel: space environment

Professor Danielle Wood serves as an Assistant Professor in Media Arts & Sciences and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within the MIT Media Lab, Prof. Wood leads the Space Enabled Research Group which seeks to advance justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space. Prof. Wood is a scholar of societal development with a background that includes satellite design, earth science applications, systems engineering, and technology policy. In her research, Prof. Wood applies these skills to design innovative systems that harness space technology to address development challenges around the world. Prior to serving as faculty at MIT, Professor Wood held positions at NASA Headquarters, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Aerospace Corporation, Johns Hopkins University, and the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs. Prof. Wood studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned a PhD in engineering systems, SM in aeronautics and astronautics, SM in technology policy, and SB in aerospace engineering.

Laura Cummings is the Regulatory Affairs Counsel for Astroscale U.S., leading licensing for the Life Extension (LEX) program. Her advocacy focuses on regulatory development and spectrum access for in-space servicing.

Laura is a part of the International Institute of Space Law and President of the Commercial Smallsat Spectrum Management Association. Additionally, she serves on the planning committee for the American Bar Association Committee on Space Law.

Laura brings a unique blend of legal and technical expertise to facilitate national regulatory advancement and global space policy development. She holds a juris doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s degrees in Astronomy and International Affairs.

Charlotte Shabarekh is Principal Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.  MIT Lincoln Laboratory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center that develops technology in support of national security. Charlotte’s research interests include civil space and space traffic management.  She has 20 years experience in developing advanced technology in the fields of artificial intelligence and space domain awareness.

Marco Concha is the Flight Dynamics Engineering Manager for Amazon’s Project Kuiper. With 25+ years of experience in mission, orbit, & trajectory design, Marco has served in industry roles such as Navigation Lead for the NASA GOES-R program, Flight Dynamics Architect for the Mission Extension Vehicle at ATK, Astrodynamics Specialist for GeoEye-1, and Navigation Engineer for NASA’s Lunar Prospector. Marco began his career as a Mission Analysis and Navigation Engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and has a B.S. Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Dr. Alinda Mashiku is the Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) Program Manager and Technical Lead at NASA since August 2022. Prior to her recent role, she was the Deputy Program Manager and Technical Lead Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) at NASA since 2019. The CARA program is an agency function that is responsible for providing risk analysis for ~100 un-crewed satellite missions for collision avoidance and ensuring the safety of the space environment. Dr. Mashiku joined NASA in 2013 supporting various missions as a spacecraft navigation and mission trajectory design engineer. From the time she joined NASA, she worked on the OSIRIS-Rex mission performing several tasks such as reconnaissance-site targeting, trajectory dispersion analysis, solar radiation pressure and thermal effects for orbit stability and satellite interplanetary orbit determination.

She is a recipient of several NASA Awards including the 2020 Engineering and Technology Directorate Excellence in Safety & Quality Assurance Award and a 2020 NASA Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division Individual Special Act Award. In 2019, she received the NASA Agency Honor Group Achievement Medal as a committee member of the Women Engineers in Science and Technology. In 2018, she received the NASA 2018 Agency Honors Award for OSIRIS-Rex Earth Gravity Assist Group Achievement and the Robert H. Goddard Award Exceptional Achievement Award for Outreach. She is member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics technical committee in Astrodynamics, and a member of the IAA Permanent Committee on Space Traffic Management.               

Dr. Mashiku obtained her bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in Aerospace Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2007, and then both her master’s and PhD in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in 2009 and 2013 consecutively. She was a NASA GSRP Fellow from 2010-2013, a recipient of the Purdue Doctoral Fellowship Award from 2007-2010 and other several academic awards.