ANDREA BOYD

Andrea Boyd has worked the last 15 years at the European Astronaut Centre as a Flight Controller for the International Space Station. She studied Mechatronic Engineering in Adelaide and specialised in robotics in South Korea. She worked for many years in Automation and underground FIFO Mining in central Australia then joined the ISS Flight Control Team, certified as a Flight Operations Engineer for payload control, biomedical and crew operations.

Andrea’s projects together with the ISS have included spacefood, augmented reality, retinal diagnostics, NEEMO underwater astronaut missions in USA and supporting crew launches and landings from both Baikonur Cosmodrome and Cape Canaveral. From both locally and overseas, Andrea’s been instrumental the last 25 years in developing the Australian space industry. She co-founded Aerospace Futures, still the premier tertiary space conference, and creates scholarships annually for Australian students to attend the biggest international space conference in the world; taught at the South Australian Space School and National Space Camp, volunteered with countless Aussie schools and universities for STEM events, gave a TED Talk and has assisted Australians to follow extraordinary career paths at home and overseas.

Andrea meets regularly with Australian Embassies, Federal and State Parliaments; and as a major side project co-founded the Australian Space Agency, serving on its Space Industry Leaders Forum. She created an internship at the United Nations Youth Space Advisory 20 years ago, which became a regular paid opportunity; Andrea serves on key international technical committees like the International Astronautical Federation’s Human Spaceflight and Workforce Development Groups; and recently graduated Cohort 1 from the prestigious Global Executive MBA (Defence and Space).