Sydney in Space

One of Australia’s leading exponents of space biology and health, Dr Joshua Chou is passionate about finding new ways to deal with debilitating diseases by applying engineering principles to unanswered biological questions. A senior lecturer and Group Leader in the School of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering & IT (FEIT) at UTS, Joshua’s innovative research focuses on developing different biological tools to understand cellular and disease mechanotransduction. He is a Charlie Teo Fellow, with a two-year grant to use space biology to disable some of the hardest cancers to fight, including brain cancer. Joshua was awarded the Australia Space Award Researcher of the Year in 2020 and was a 2021 finalist for the UTS Chancellor’s Medal for Research Excellence for his work leveraging the unique properties of micro gravity in space to understand physical properties of the living cell and their impact in health and disease.

A veteran of collaborative product and startup innovation within Space, MediaTech and AgTech, Dr Tim Parsons leads the Australian NewSpace network Delta-V, while consulting widely to research organisations, tech-focused SMEs, startup accelorators and incubators nationally. 

A member of the SIAA’s advisory committee, Tim’s formal board experience extends from his role as a non-executive director for not-for-profit MediaTech incubator, the Studio Pty Ltd, as wll as Australian representative director of Vimond Media Solutions APAC Pty Ltd.  He is also a dreictor of both his own consultancy, Super Lumina Pty Ltd and the Delta-V Newspace Alliance Pty Ltd.  Tim is also a member of the establishment committee of the SmartSatCRC, and their Australian Space Industry Startup Cluster Company. Tim holds a PhD in Rarefied Hypersonic Flow Simulation from Imperial College, London. 

Prof. Williams received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2001 and has gone on to become the Professor of Marine Robotics at the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics and the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. 

He holds an ARC Future Fellowship and head of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Facility.   His research interests include Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping in unstructured underwater environments, autonomous navigation and control, classification and clustering of large volumes of data collected by robotic systems.

Most recently, Professor Williams has become recently co-Director of the NSW Space Research Network.  Along with Professor Fitch, Professor Williams is helping position NSW enterprise to compete in the space sector by connecting key stakeholders to undertake R&D activities with a focus on translation and impact.

Anntonette is an Executive Director at the Australian Space Agency and commenced in the Agency soon after it was established in July 2018. Anny is responsible for the operations of the Agency and ensuring it meets it government requirements as well as establishing its governance arrangement. In addition to managing the parliamentary interaction, finances, human resources and event management, Anny is also responsible for all communications for the Agency and has a personal goal to meet the key values of the Agency – namely to inspire Australians and ‘do cool stuff’. 

In 2019, Anntonette was identified in the Financial Review’s as one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women. As a chartered professional engineer, Anny graduated with honours at the University of Technology Sydney and took on a career in sustainability. Working across multiple Government agencies as well as not for profit and consultancy – Anny brings more than 14 years as a senior executive capability to the Agency. 

Prof Robert Fitch is a leading research scientist in the area of autonomous field robotics. He is interested in systems of outdoor robots and their use in addressing key problems in applications including agriculture and environmental monitoring. Robert received his PhD in computer science from Dartmouth (USA) and worked as a Senior Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at The University of Sydney before joining UTS. He has led research in planning and collaborative decision-making for both ground and aerial robots in a variety of government and industry sponsored projects including those in broad-acre agriculture, horticulture, bird tracking, and commercial aviation.

He is a fellow co-Director of the NSW Space Research Network, which aims to support collaboration between government and industry to deliver space-focused research outcomes and research for translation for NSW, Australia and the world.

Annabelle Jones is currently a biomedical engineering master’s research student at the University of Technology in Sydney. Her research focuses on female physiology and its adaption into space travel—specifically, the effect of microgravity on oestrogen production with an organ-on-chip device.  Annabelle is captivated by the current cultural shift in the aerospace industry. The industry is no longer concerned about how will we reach alien planets, but what will we do once we arrive? To Annabelle’s surprise, female-specific health is incredibly understudied within the context of space, especially sexual and reproductive health. However, she became interested in the lack of research on the menstrual cycle. It seemed apparent to Annabelle that if we are going to become a healthy, multi-planetary species, researching a fundamental biological function would be the best place to start. This research will be among the first of its kind and will set the foundation for future women’s health studies in space. Annabelle is currently a mentee in the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Space4Women program and is an active member of the NSSA Women in Space Chapter.