“I love being surrounded by friendly, bright and talented researchers, and thankful that working at Imperial allows me to live my dream of being a part of the space sector.”
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the space sector. As I was nearing the end of school, I decided to go into mechanical engineering with the goal of leveraging this education to a space career.
I completed my undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada, with a specialisation in heat transfer and metallurgy for automotive applications (i.e, not space). Following this, I worked as a process engineer at a hearing aid manufacturing company, Unitron Global, where I developed manufacturing methods and standards for custom hearing aids (again, not space).
My career trajectory at that time was about as far from space as possible, and I knew that I would not achieve my goal without a major change. I left my job and moved to France with my partner and our dog to attend a master’s programme in space studies at the International Space University. This enabled me to secure an internship at ispace Europe, a private lunar exploration company where I learned a lot about the inner workings of a NewSpace start-up company. My responsibilities ranged from mechanical and systems engineering to outreach and business development.
Following my internship, ispace offered to co-fund my position as a Research Assistant here at Imperial, as well as my doctoral studies in lunar mineral processing engineering. My work is mostly experimental, and so I spend a lot of time in the lab developing my experimental apparatus and running tests. My experiments focus on testing different ways to statically charge fake Moon dust, and then attempting to determine the best way to use the different charges carried by each mineral to separate them by type.
When I’m not in the lab or at my desk, I enjoy spending time with my partner and our pets, cooking, reading, going on walks, and watching The Great British Bake Off on TV.
Working at Imperial over the last year has been the highlight of my professional and academic careers. I love being surrounded by friendly, bright and talented researchers, and am constantly motivated to work hard and excel at what I do. Above all, I am thankful that working at Imperial allows me to live my dream of being a part of the space sector.