Our Team

Our Team

David Dangoor CBE

Honorary President

Dangoor Education provides opportunities across the learning spectrum with sponsorship of Westminster Academy, Open University Massive Open Online Courses, STEM university scholarships, the Dangoor Centre for Medical Education at the Royal Society of Medicine and the Dangoor Centre for Personalised Medicine at Bar Ilan University. Dangoor Education’s sponsorship of the UK, EU Space Design Competition and Galactic Challenges builds on the fantastic legacy of Sir Naim Dangoor, who supported the Competition for a number of years.

Marcus du Sautoy FRS, OBE

Patron

Is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Formerly a Fellow of All Souls College, and Wadham College, he is now a Fellow of New College. He was previously President of the Mathematical Association, an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. His academic work concerns mainly group theory and number theory. In October 2008, he was appointed to the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, succeeding the inaugural holder Richard Dawkins.

Dr Randall Perry

Founder of SSE²F

Dr Perry is the founder of the UKSDC and the Space Science Engineering & Environmental Foundation (SSE²F). He is the Honorary Chair of the SSE²F, a registered UK charity. The SSE²F supports the UK, MEA and EU Space Design Challenge and the Galactic Challenge. He is a director of the Global Space Design Challenge. He is the fo0under 0f Pro ed et al. Ltd, which supports the SSEF charity. He has held a Royal Society Fellow at Imperial College London. He has a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, has held the US and Canada National Science Foundation Fellowship at Oxford University, and is a NASA certified Astrobiologist. His current focus is on education. In addition, he has published widely in his areas of interest of geology, geochemistry, microbiology and education. He is the author of six adventure novels. Besides scientific talks he enjoys giving talks to a wide variety of public venues for example being invited to give the Public Lecture at the Durham Institute for Advanced Studies on a Definition of Life and as a painter and member of the Chelsea Art Club an invited talk on Science and Art. As a script writer he is a member of the Writers Guild of America West. He is a director and producer with Athene Films, a Canadian film company whose most recent film is Meet Beau Dick. In his spare time he enjoys trekking, scuba diving and flying helicopters and aircraft. He has sailed across the Atlantic. Before finishing a Ph.D. later in life, he was a president of a company and has since visited many of the Earth’s extreme habitats including diving in ‘Alvin’ the deep submersible. Dr Perry was shortlisted for a Sir Arthur Clarke Award.  randallsperry rsperry

Jenny Lyons

CEO of SSEF

Jenny Lyons has been with SSEF for more than a decade, evolving from a volunteer organiser into Director of Education and, latterly, CEO with a team of staff.  Jenny is an expert in the delivery of secondary school science education, having worked as part of a ‘flying squad’, sent to science departments to assist in raising standards. It was whilst working as a science teacher that Jenny brought a team of students to an SSEF event: the impact was so immediate, obvious and powerful that she became a Volunteer, assisting at competitions.

As a Volunteer, Jenny became known for her skill in liaising with the trustees, the SSEF’s founder, the other volunteers, the sponsors, the UK Space Agency, diverse schools and regional universities. Enthused by the SSEF mission, she utilised her expertise, managing the educational and organisational change which has been fundamental to the expansion of SSEF’s work around the UK, EU and Africa, and in building a staff team whilst maintaining the ethos of a volunteer-strong charity. After a decade of events for school students, Jenny still takes a teacher’s delight in interacting with the students and in seeing the transformational impact of SSEF activities upon those young people.

Initially recognised and recruited by SSEF Founder, Randall Perry, Jenny maintains and promotes the founder’s original vision of a high impact, widely accessible industry simulation which provides an experience beyond any typical ‘school project’. With the staff team,volunteers, trustees and founder, Jenny has helped SSEF expand its efforts around the UK, into the EU and, recently, into Africa, whilst expanding across age groups, across disciplines and whilst handling the need to find income to fund the expansions.

Beyond this, and because of this, Jenny is a champion for the power of SSEF as a volunteer-rich organisation, and finds joy in working with the large, diverse pool of talented volunteers and competition veterans who are so much a part of the SSEF’s world.

Riki Hihinashvili

Board Member

Rikki joined the UKSDC’s small team back in 2009-2010, which since then has grown fantastically. Her first day/evening working with Dr Perry and Anita Galye from Houston lasted until 4am in the morning the three hours before the competition started. She has earned her PhD degree from Imperial College in physics of porous materials and now lives in Israel where she works as a researcher in a start-up company.

Adam Braithwaite

Space Science Engineering Foundation
Trustee Representative

Adam completed his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Imperial College in the summer of 2015, and is now a quantitative strategist at Goldman Sachs focused on pricing and modelling of derivative products across the securities business. In his scarce free time, he enjoys flying, scuba diving, and stealing unattended pizza at the competition finals.

Adam was the UKSDC organising chair for 2013/14.

Neelesh Ravichandran

Board Member and Director of
Design and Publications

Neelesh is in his secon year of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. He competed in the 2016/17 National competition and has volunteered at UKSDC and the Galactic Challenge events as well as supervising the 2017/18 Internationals (ISSDC) trip to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. He is an avid tennis player and fan. He also enjoys his fair share of hackathons.

Kamogelo Thutoetsile

Board member and Alumni Representative

Kamogelo has a medical degree from the University of Cambridge. She has a BA in Neuroscience and is particularly interested in Neurosurgery. Originally from Botswana, she has had the privilege of participating in the UK Space Design Competition and at the International Space Settlement Design Competition at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where she was part of the winning team. In addition she won the national Rutherford best science knowledge award.

Nadia Tore Gjerdingen

Alumni Representative

Nadia is in the third year of a Mechanical engineering degree at Imperial College London. Having first come across the competition in 2014, she threw herself into the chaos of a video heat, regional competition and a national final. She helped to organise and launch the first official Galactic Challenge. She has been the social media director for theUK Space Design Competition.
Outside of the UKSDC and the MEASDC and course studies, Nadia is on a Target Rifle Shooting team and, through university societies, gets to  enjoy every form of dance under the sun.

Jian Heseri

 

Chair Space Science Engineering Foundation
Trustee Representative

Jian Heseri started volunteering with UKSDC in 2009,first as a supporting technical specialist, and later on as judge and “company” CEO.  After completing his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, he currently works as a reliability engineer in the petroleum industry, specialising in technical risk management and system reliability solutions in the hostile underwater environment.  The best treat for his volunteering weekends is seeing creative ideas from young candidates coming together into designs.

Sanaa Nusrat

 

 

Advisor

Sanaa Nusrat started volunteering with UKSDC in 2017 and attended the International Space Settlement Design Competition at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 2010,She currently works for Microsoft Corporation.