Katherine Bennell-Pegg

Katherine Bennell-Pegg is an  Australian Astronaut and Space Systems Engineer. She is the first ever person to be trained as an astronaut under the Australian flag. Katherine was most recently a  Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, where she contributed to growing Australia's space capability through being technical lead on scoping the nation's first Moon rover mission, developing plans to capitalise on Australia's space strengths, and managing the Access to Space Team. She has more than a decade of experience developing space programs and strategies, technologies, and missions across Europe, the UK, the US and Australia. These include the Orion vehicle that is taking humans back to the Moon, space station facilities, earth observation missions and robotic satellite capture technologies. 

Katherine has always dreamed of becoming an astronaut and in early 2023 took the giant leap to achieving that dream when she began astronaut training with the European Space Agency. Katherine currently lives in Germany with her husband and two young daughters while training at the European Astronaut Centre.

Katherine  holds four degrees across science (physics major), space and aeronautical engineering. Katherine is a keen volunteer, having worked with the Australian Army Reserves, Surf Life Saving, State Emergency Service, and Engineers Without Borders Australia. Her hobbies include scuba diving, flying, reading, backyard astronomy, surfing, sailing, basketball, netball, tennis, hiking and cycling.

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Eric Lasker

Eric is part of the founding team at Varda Space Industries where he is the Chief Revenue Officer. Varda Space Industries develops small reentry vehicles that are used both for the commercial development of pharmaceuticals in microgravity, as well as a test system for all manner of reentry related technologies.

Varda is currently in partnership with NASA Ames, NASA Langley, and multiple branches of the US Defense Department, as well as the commercial pharmaceutical industry. Varda recently completed their first end to end reentry mission and the W-1 capsule was the first commercial spacecraft to ever land on US soil.

Prior to his work at Varda, Eric worked in similar roles at the drone logistics company Zipline International, operating mass-scale delivery drones in sub saharan Africa, and the payment processing company Stripe. Eric has a degree in Physics from Colgate University.

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Lt. Gen. Larry D. James USAF (Ret.)

Lt Gen (USAF Ret) Larry D. James is the Strategic Advisor for SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) in Adelaide Australia and a Distinguished Professor of Space Research and Innovation at Monash University in Melbourne Australia. At SmartSat CRC he provides advocacy, technical advice, and support for SmartSat’s R&D, innovation and educational activities. At Monash he engages with senior university leadership to further space curriculum expansion and development; help build government partnerships both domestically and globally; build research collaborations and opportunities; and support indigenous student development programs.

Prior to this assignment he served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2013 to 2024. As the Laboratory's Chief Operating Officer, he was responsible for the day-to-day management of JPL's resources and activities. This included managing the Laboratory's solar system exploration, Mars, astronomy, physics, Earth science, interplanetary network programs, and all business operations.

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Prior to his retirement from active duty in 2013, Lt. Gen. James was the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) at the Pentagon. He was responsible to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for policy formulation, planning, evaluation, oversight, and leadership of Air Force ISR capabilities and led more than 20,000 ISR officers, enlisted and civilians across the Air Force ISR Enterprise.

Lt. Gen. James received his Bachelor of Science in Astronautical Engineering (1978) from the US Air Force Academy (Distinguished Graduate) and his Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics (1983) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. He was also a Draper Fellow at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, MA. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

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Niki Scevak

Niki is a co-founder of Blackbird, an investment firm with the dream to be a generational owner of generational companies born from Australia and New Zealand. Prior to Blackbird, he founded Startmate, an accelerator that helps nerds with ideas become great CEOs and build global startups. Earlier, he co-founded two software companies.

Blackbird partners with founders at the very beginning and surrounds them with a community of other founders who have built successful technology companies before. The firm began in 2012 and today manages a portfolio of 100+ technology companies worth over $7 billion, with committed capital across five funds.

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