Image: NASA - Exoplanet WASP-96 b
Space Studies
Transit authority
My interest in space began in my father's fabrication and sculpture studio, where I watched his small team construct a massive solar system display for Canada's largest space science center. I was only in kindergarten, but my job was interaction expert. I provided serious feedback on hand-built robots, kinetic models, and the inventive way an airbrush mounted on a spinning disk could illustrate Saturn's intricate rings.
A few years later, after climbing Sigiriya, the ancient rock fortress and marvel of hydraulic engineering, I stood outside Arthur C. Clarke's home in Sri Lanka. I was halfway through a journey around the world, and I was exploring places that once again sparked questions about planetary potential, the same questions that intrigued Clarke and the Anuradhapura-era builders of Sigiriya, and inspire me today. Now, as I consider new frontiers and future possibilities, I find myself questioning what the next era of space exploration will look like.
In an effort to understand part of this question, I have largely organized my career around a concern for the future and the central issue of global flows: the movement of people, data, goods, machines, and capital. Understanding logistics has been essential in helping me interpret real-world conditions and future possibilities, which I love because it allows me to explore, even from behind a desk. I'm drawn to programs that engage with both technical and non-technical dimensions of interplanetary transportation, habitation, and policy. While the space industry expands, with over 1,000 companies now offering space-based services, Earth's supply chains and territorial boundaries face increasing contestation. These interconnected complexities create leadership challenges in balancing influence between governments, bad-actors, and commercial enterprises, while also producing interpretive uncertainties regarding technological change.
My interest lies in space transportation networks, Earth observation, governance, and visual concepts produced by artists. Space logistics differs from Earth-based systems as it requires accounting for dynamic orbital paths, mass and volume changes during transport, various in-space trajectories, and consideration for commonality in systems. I am particularly interested in time-dependent variables within these architectures, as well as the aggregation of emerging technologies and security risks that may subsequently and significantly shift political direction.
Our planet has been shaped by movement, and I approach space studies from the perspective of someone who has managed global transportation projects and worked on cross-border initiatives at the U.S.-Mexico boundary. These experiences inform my thinking about international agreements on movement in space. While building my foresight consultancy, I simultaneously completed research on social futures in remote geographies.
One of my most distinctive experiences was commuting for a year between Big Bend and MIT, where I earned my Diploma in Innovation and Technology. During those fourteen-hour journeys through the Permian Basin oilfields and flights from Midland Air and Spaceport, I read extensively and developed my ideas on observation, energy transfer at scale, and complex systems.
When COVID-19 abruptly canceled my projects, I joined public online discussions with futurists and architects working in extreme environments. I took advantage of what felt like unprecedented access during the pandemic while earning my certificate in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston.
Around the same time, as community project lead for the transnational Big Bend Biosphere Region, I stepped into diplomacy and learned to translate complex scientific concepts into accessible and persuasive narratives. My project focused on reducing waste transportation in a remote ecosystem through partnerships with UNESCO, the National Park Service, and collaborators in both the U.S. and Mexico. I approached this as both a logistics-reduction problem and an analog to a space mission.
More recently my understanding of the urgency and importance of treaties and human factors has expanded while learning hands-on about refugee resettlement programs managed by a U.S. Department of State contractor. Though experienced in highly scrutinized logistics program management after a decade in Strategic Operations for Apple, and as the daughter of someone born in a refugee resettlement camp, I now better understand the significance of serving people at great risk seeking new worlds. My 2024 proposal for a NASA Artemis Moon Tree that traveled aboard the Orion spacecraft was selected from thousands of applications. This opportunity strengthened my connection to space logistics and allowed me to create programs sharing exploration excitement in tangible ways.
These experiences form the foundation for a writing and visual art series exploring the movement of people, resources, and ideas beyond Earth. Transit Authority examines space transportation networks, governance, and habitat design in five parts, drawing from my background in global logistics, cross-border initiatives, and curiosity about remote environments. The title is, of course, a wink and a provocation.
Transit Authority series will be linked here.
Modified: March 17, 2025