Our Giant Leap: Meet the women behind SGAC – NCAC

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Cheyenne Polius

Cheyenne Polius is a small island girl with big dreams. In 2015, she left St Lucia to pursue an Integrated Masters degree in Astrophysics in the UK. Cheyenne’s passion for Space came full circle back to her home island when was appointed as St Lucia’s first National Point of Contact (NPoC) in the Space Generation Advisory Council. Her efforts as NPoC led to co-founding St Lucia’s first national Astronomy Association (LUNAA) to provide an avenue for Space and Science enthusiasts to connect. In her capacity as President of LUNAA, she is also continuing her SGAC mission to raise awareness of the benefits of Space technology to St Lucia and the rest of the Caribbean region.Day-to-day, Cheyenne is using her love for numbers and problem solving in the Finance Technology industry as an Analytics Specialist. Outside of work, she is still very active in the space community as an international speaker, mentor and science communicator. This dedication stems from a wider career goal of increasing gender and ethnic diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, especially Physics.

Mariam Naseem

Mariam is currently working with the Industry Relations team at the Canadian Space Agency. She is also a Visiting Scholar at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and a research collaborator on Ocean Worlds science with a scientist at NASA Goddard. She has a BSc. in Electrical Engineering from UT Austin and an MBA from the University of Toronto. Mariam brings a global and multi-disciplinary background to the space sector, having worked as a commercial space consultant, as a technology strategist in the Enterprise Innovation team at one of the largest banks in Canada, as a field engineer on an oil rig in Russia, a manufacturing engineer in a Product Development center in Texas and as a business development manager for a Toronto-based Quantum computing startup. She serves as National Point of Contact for Canada and as a Mentorship Committee member at the Space Generation Advisory Council, as coordinator for the Next Generation Plenary at the International Astronautical Federation’s Workforce Development and Young Professionals Programme Committee and as a SEDS-Canada Advisory Board member.

Sapna Rao

Sapna Rao is a Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin Commercial Civil Space. She has worked on human space exploration missions ranging from the Artemis missions to cryogenic demonstration missions. Her focuses are on Systems Architecture and applying Machine Learning to space missions. Additionally, she is passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and is an active member in Lockheed Martin’s Women’s Impact Network where she organizes professional development events for women and minorities. She is also working with the Space Frontier Foundation to create a Diversity Equity and Inclusion toolkit to aid organizations and conferences. She prioritizes STEM outreach and is an advocate for minority representation in engineering. She graduated Virginia Tech with a Bachelor’s of Science in Aerospace Engineering in 2018.

Roxy Williams

Roxy Williams is NPOC of Nicaragua in SGAC and is the president of the Society of Women in Space Exploration CR. She worked on a CubeSat design with INPE. She was a GHC Student Scholar participating in the largest gathering of women in computing. She co-design an app to determine the most suitable sites for shelters in the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua; Sentinel-1, elevation and land cover derived from FAO’s SEPAL cloud platform and Google Earth Engine was used to derive low, medium and high shelter suitability. Currently Roxy is working as the lead of CDH and Comms subsystems on a Mercury Sample Return Mission design with the SEPG.

Roxy will be moderating the webinar.