The 8th European Space Generation Workshop is organized by a great team of SGAC volunteers.

Meet the devoted team that is responsible for bringing this epic event to life!

Event Managers

Ayla Maria Wolf, Event Manager

Ayla has a multidisciplinary background with a bachelor’s degree and extensive working experience in service sector management (especially in media, communications, and event management on the hand. Currently, she works as content manager for a company manufacturing temperature control systems (e.g. for vacuum chambers) while serving as Regional Communications Manager for Europe and as Event Manager for the 8th European Space Generation Workshop at SGAC.

Smit Patel, Deputy Event Manager

Originally from India, Smit is currently pursuing his Master’s in Aerospace Engineering at Technical University Braunschweig in Germany. He is doing his master’s thesis at a space biotech company Yuri. He completed his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering at Indus University, Ahmedabad, India. He is also the Head of the Research department at Deep Space Initiative. Smit is a polyglot, a science communicator, and passionate about space technology. Smit is striving to build a sustainable future beyond the Earth.

Programme Team

Nisanur Eker

Nisanur Eker is a Master’s student of Aerospace Engineering at Technical University of Munich and a Mechanical Engineer for the Munich-based Space company DCUBED. Born and raised in Turkey, she moved to Germany to obtain her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Nisanur’s contributions to Space were recognized with the Emerging Space Leaders Grant by the International Astronautical Federation in 2022 and the Nebula Award by SGAC in 2023.

Salman Ali Thepdawala

Salman Ali is an Aerospace engineer from Pakistan and is passionate about education, sustainability, AI applications and market opportunities within the Space ecosystem. He is a Munich Aerospace PhD scholar at Universität der Bundeswehr, Germany, working on AI-based Onboard Collision Avoidance in Large Multi-Satellite Systems. In his free time, he consults for Neutron Star Systems in technical projects and representation.

Bhavyashree Janardhana

Bhavyashree Janardhana, a space aficionado, works as a Propulsion & AIT engineer at Polaris Spaceplanes. She holds a master’s degree in Space Engineering from TU Berlin, and her research interests lie in the domain of developing propulsion systems for hypersonic space planes. With a prior academic background in Aeronautical Engineering from India, Bhavyashree has worked as a research associate at various Indian research institutes, focusing her research on space structures and aerodynamics.

Delegates Team

Sahil Bhatia

Sahil Bhatia is a second-year student in the Master of Science in Space Engineering at the University of Bremen. His academic pursuits revolve around human Space flight, Space sustainability, and planetary exploration technologies. Within the SGAC, he has collaborated with the Small Satellites Project Group to publish and present research work at various conferences. Sahil values the intersection of different disciplines and is an active part of the Beyond Earthbound community, which explores the intersection of Space, Arts, and Humanities.

Mathilde Leuridan

Mathilde is a computational scientist at ECMWF working on the Destination Earth initiative. She previously studied mathematics and applied mathematics at Warwick and Oxford, where she was involved with the local aerospace university societies. Her main topics of interest in the aerospace sector are space sustainability and earth observation.

Raphael Mena Morales

Raphael is a seasoned event organizer (SG[France], past SGC, and SG[UK]). As a Systems Engineer at Airbus for the development of onboard processors, he works within multinational teams (British, French, German) on cutting-edge technology, to advance the future of Space telecommunications. Raphael is always looking for new opportunities to learn, with purpose, and happily finds both at SGAC.

Logistics, Local Support & Finance Team

Ian Luca Benecken

Ian Luca Benecken is a recent Bachelor’s degree graduate in Aerospace engineering from the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences. Currently, he is studying at the University of Stuttgart for his Masters degree in the same field. His bachelor’s thesis, he wrote at the the Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. There he designed Spacewalk procedures for the LUNA Moon analogue facility. Before that, he interned at the Belgian User Support and Operations Centre in Brussels, Belgium, an ISS payload operations centre.

Matti Ukkola

Matti studies electrical engineering at TU Munich and builds communication systems for wildfire detection satellites at OroraTech. He has lived in the UK, and Finland and is currently based in Germany, where he led a student satellite project and launched two high-altitude balloons. At SGAC, he has participated in multiple events both at the local level as well as global level as a delegate for the SGFF and SGC. In his free time, Matti enjoys nature and plays the trumpet in a big band.

Lina Salman

Lina is from Munich, Germany. She studied Chemical Engineering at TU Munich and is now pursuing a PhD in the field of Life Support Systems for Human Spaceflight. Her favorite hobbies include traveling, taekwondo, and making music. She is looking forward to helping organize the 8th European Space Generation Workshop and to allowing students, professionals, and industry representatives to meet, connect, and discuss Space in general, New Space, and Space entrepreneurship in the European region.

Sondes Morchedi

Sondes is an aerospace PhD student at the University of the Bundeswehr in Germany. She holds a double master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and in Control Systems Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and from INSA Rennes in France. She has been an active member of SGAC since 2020 and has worked in several project groups like the Small Satellites project group or the Commercial Space project group.

Katrin Dietmayer

Katrin Dietmayer received her M.Sc. degree in mathematics from the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Germany, in 2016. She joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in 2017, since December 2021 as a Senior Engineer, where her main research is in the field of highly precise GNSS receiver software development for embedded systems. 

Katrin has been part of SGAC since 2020 and joined the SGAC Alumni Team in 2021. Since early 2022, she has been one of the Alumni Team Co-Leads and managed SG[Germany]2023.

PR & Communications Team

Michael Skreta

Michael is a Systems Engineer working at BAE Systems Space in the UK. His work involves securing future business opportunities for the new Azalea EO/ISR Spacecraft cluster, seeking new operational models and responding to RFIs and tenders from a global range of customers. He is also very passionate about STEM outreach as well as creating equal opportunities for all those hoping to enter the Space industry. In his spare time, Michael is either playing sports, creating and listening to music, or playing with his cat.

Tiia Tikkala

Tiia is an MSc student in Computational Science & Engineering at TU Munich, Germany. While she comes from Finland, she completed her BSc in Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft where she spent much of her time in the rocketry team DARE, working on projects ranging from control of rocket engines to trajectory simulations. After organizing the European Space Camp in Norway for 5 years and attending SGC 2022 in Paris, she chose to continue organizing Space events as SGAC’s National Point of Contact for Finland.

Théa Beaury

Théa is a Colombian and French undergraduate physics student at the University of Bordeaux. She is passionate about human rights and event planning, which is why she was Secretary General of her high school’s Model United Nations and co-founded a Girl Up gender equality club. In her free time, Théa hosts a podcast about growing up and being a girl in STEM and volunteers with children and in student events.