Colloquium Series

Deputy Assistant to the President, Executive Secretary of the National Space Council

Mr. Chirag Parikh was appointed by the President as the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council on August 2, 2021. As Executive Secretary, he is responsible for advising the Vice President, in her role as Chair of the National Space Council, on developing national policies and strategies across the civil, commercial, and national security sectors. He is also responsible for overseeing the implementation of United States space policies and strategies and working across the United States Government as well as with industry, international, and academia partners to meet Administration objectives through the space sector.

Mr. Parikh joined the Administration from Microsoft Azure, where he led the creation of a company-wide business unit, known as Azure Space, to bring together the power of global cloud capabilities with evolving space sector. Prior to Microsoft, he had a U.S. government career that spanned more than two decades. He has served as a Senior Executive at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), leading collection and tasking of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) sensors and the analysis of GEOINT data. From 2010-2016, he served as the Director of Space Policy on the White House National Security Council overseeing U.S. national security space efforts. He has also served as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology and as an aerospace engineer at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

EVA Human Performance & Analog Engineer, KBR, Inc.

Currently on an exciting adventure with various multidisciplinary teams assisting and leading in the development, testing, and evaluation of innovative endeavors getting us back to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. With my diverse background in rocket propulsion, emergency medical services, and extravehicular activity (EVA) flight training and support, I continue to apply my experiences and passion to help motivate, promote, and inspire these endeavors towards the future of Human Space Exploration off the Earth, for the Earth, and Beyond.

From LinkedIn: Support the Human Physiology, Performance, Protection, and Operations (H-3PO) Laboratory with the Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences (BR&ES) Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This includes performing multi-disciplinary laboratory research and provide operational expertise in several technical areas, including space suits, physiology, exploration systems, and concept of operations to address health and performance risks for future human exploration missions (Gateway, Moon, and Mars). Additionally, support evaluations of Advanced Exploration (AES) prototype systems and operations in analog field test environments that include terrestrial, underwater, parabolic flight, mechanical offloading, vacuum chamber, virtual reality test environments, and physiological testing to evaluate human performance during EVA.

Team Lead, Human Factors & Integrated Logistics Engineering, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Charlie joined NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 1994 as a Human Factors Engineer. He was fortunate to be able to work on International Space Station design, including delivery of the robotic arm (Canadarm) to the station and development of two modules. He worked with NASA's International Partners and multiple NASA contractors in a very dynamic time. He subsequently worked in systems engineering for Gravity Probe B and Space Shuttle and spent a year at NASA Headquarters in the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. Upon return to Marshall in 2008, he led the Human Factors Engineering Team, through Crew Launch Vehicle and then Space Launch System development. During nine of these years, he was the Deputy to the NASA Technical Fellow for Human Factors, where he helped lead the Agency implementation of Human Systems Integration. He is now leading an assessment of lighting effects on human EVA task performance at the Lunar South Pole.

Professor Emeritus, University of Texas Medical Branch

Sheryl L. Bishop, PhD is Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. She also served as faculty at the International Space University, Strasbourg, France, since 1996. As an internationally recognized behavioral researcher in extreme environments, for the last 25 years Dr. Bishop has investigated human performance and group dynamics in teams in extreme, unusual environments, involving deep cavers, mountain climbers, desert survival groups, polar expeditioners, Antarctic winter-over groups and various simulations of isolated, confined environments for space, including a number of missions at remote habitats (e.g., Mars Desert Research Station, Utah, HiSEAS in Hawaii, and the FMARS and Mars Project on Devon Island, Canada). She has been a grant reviewer for the European Space Agency's Concordia Station, the Canadian Space Agency's Life Science Directorate, the Australian Antarctic Science Division, and the Czech Science Foundation. She has over 60 publications (including contribution to NASA's Historical Series on Psychology in Space) and over 50 scholarly presentations in both the medical and psychological fields. She is frequently sought out as a content expert by various media and has participated in multiple television documentaries on space and extreme environments by Discovery Channel, BBC, and 60 Minutes.

Human-AI and User Experience Researcher, Florida Institute of Technology

Troy Weekes is a Human-AI and User Experience Researcher who studies how to build user-facing AI systems with safe, responsible, and effective user experiences. His research interest focuses on the cognitive augmentation of knowledge workers using the Flow Choice Architecture, which is a neurotechnology agent that is personalized to sense and nudge knowledge workers based on their static traits and dynamic cognitive and affective states.

Troy currently works on the Adaptive Spaceship Cockpit Simulator to run experimental protocols that simulate a range of human spaceflight configurations for the Federal Aviation Administration's research in Commercial Space Transportation. In 2021, Troy co-authored a New Space journal article on human-centered design for spaceflight participant safety and experience using Blue Origin's suborbital flight as a case study.

Troy has landed numerous awards and accolades, including the National Innovation Award, Pride of Workmanship Award, Research Fellow of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, and National Expert in Mobile Innovation under the United Nations World Summit Awards. He is the founder of four startups and the Caribbean Tech Entrepreneurship Program, which partnered with the World Bank Group and the Caribbean Development Bank, to serve over 1,200 entrepreneurs and 250 startups from 19 countries.

To complement his extensive experience in technology innovation, Troy is a certified private pilot. Troy holds a Ph.D. in Human-Centered Design from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Florida Tech. He completed his M.Sc. in Aviation Human Factors and B.Sc. in Aeronautical Science from the College of Aeronautics at Florida Tech.