Chris founded the International Space School Educational Trust in 1998 with the aim of instilling the NASA you can do it” spirit in young people around the world. ISSET uses space exploration and the people behind it to drive students into successful futures.

Having been a deputy head teacher in two large high schools, Chris has a long record of leadership and transformation in education. He took his last school from below average to become the most successful school in England and Wales.

Chris says “The change we see in the young people who come on our programmes astounds me time after time. I am always in awe of their accomplishments throughout their time with ISSET and their achievements years later. I am extremely proud to say that work we continue to do at ISSET has a positive impact in both the present and future lives of our participants and people they encounter.”

Ross’ goal is to give young people access to opportunities & the skills needed for a successful future.

He has vast experience working in the STEM education industry and takes immense pride in the different programmes ISSET offer.

Ross has worked in various roles in his 8 years at ISSET, launching over 250 young people’s experiments to the International Space Station.

He believes ISSET’s challenges excite and inspire students to create breakthroughs in real world problems, spurring participants on to explore the possibilities of STEM and STEM careers.

Sarah is currently the NASA Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Programme. Her experience includes Assistant Division Chief for EVA (space walks), Robotics and Crew Systems on the International Space Station, executive support for NASA Administrator in the coordination of Space Centre Directors in implementing NASA goals, and the Project and Technical Lead in the development of NASA’s new Orion Space Vehicle which will return humans to the Moon and beyond.

Steve Harridge is Head of the Centre for Human and Aerospace Physiological Sciences at King’s College London—a world top 10 University. He has been Professor of Human & Applied Physiology at King's College London since 2005.

Steve leads the team who will build your winning experiments before they launch to the International Space Station! Through Steve’s work ISSET has access to the incredible team and facilities at Kings College London.

Julie Keeble is our expert in space science, she has been responsible for ensuring that all Mission Discovery experiments are launched to the International Space Station.

Zoë is a senior technician and Registered Scientist in the Multi-Disciplinary Teaching Laboratories at King’s College, London. After an HND majoring in Analytical Biochemistry and Microbiology, then Neuropharmacology, she accumulated an extensive range of skills over many years working in Teaching and research: the first 18 in Pharmacology and Neuroscience, then 6 years in Physiology, before switching to Molecular Biology and taking charge of her own Teaching Laboratory.

Outside term time, she does research, and is co-author on many Pharmacology research papers and articles, and at least 2 Neuroscience publications, on the blood-brain barrier. Since 2010, she has been involved in protein production and purification for research on the DNA sequences involved in coding the active sites for smooth muscle contraction and the types of proteins involved in certain ataxias

Since 2013, she has become involved, via the ISSET Chief Scientist, Julie Keeble, in developing the winning experiments from the Mission Discovery Summer School programmes, to a format that can be launched to the International Space Station, for initiation and monitoring. Since 2018, she has been assisting project students in developing further microgravity experiments, which are now her primary research commitment, as the number of Mission Discovery winning experiments has increased

Hannah is part of the team that builds your winning experiments at our King’s College London development group. Together with other team members, Hannah helps in the development and launch of the experiment to the International Space Station. Within her biomedical science degree, she focused her research on the effects of the microgravity environment on human physiology and oversaw the development of an experiment that launched to the ISS in 2020 aboard SpaceX CRS-20.

Currently working within research platforms at King’s College London, Hannah is deeply passionate about diversity and inclusion in STEM education and encouraging those from underrepresented backgrounds into STEM.

For the Mission Discovery programme, Hannah says “I love meeting such incredible groups of students at Mission Discovery, hearing all about your science aspirations and seeing your hard work come to fruition with inspiring experiment proposals being presented. I especially love taking your experimental designs and making them become a reality for you, seeing them go from paper to the lab, and right through to launch.”

Daniel is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. He is a particle physicist working on the LHCb experiment at CERN. He did his PhD at the Belle experiment in Japan, where he studied the differences in the physical laws of matter and antimatter.

Daniel is very interested in space (having recently submitted his astronaut application) and has experience with robotics and 3D printing. Developing Mission Discovery experiments was an exciting expansion of his hobbies. He thoroughly enjoys seeing the unique experiments that the student teams propose and delights in bringing them to reality and ready for space.

Laurel is a phd student studying astrophysics at the University of Oxford and medical student at the Yale School of Medicine. She currently does research on exoplanets, looking at how they eclipse distant stars and using this to characterise their masses and atmospheres.

On the medical side, Laurel has a background in tissue engineering and is passionate about the unique challenges of space medicine; she co-leads an international organisation for women in space medicine. When she's not having a blast helping to develop Mission Discovery experiments, she enjoys rowing and drawing spacey cartoons.

Jack is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. He is interested in gravity and his focus is on developing the instrumentation and experiments necessary to probe the quantum nature of gravity.

Jack enjoys using CAD to design his own experiments and using those skills to develop Mission Discovery experiments is a rewarding and exciting activity for him. He is fascinated with space so being able to aid the student teams in the preparation of their experiment for launch to the ISS is very fulfilling for him!

Guy has led and advised on strategic change programmes in major private and public companies. His passion for Social Value has seen these organisations sponsor a multitude of ISSET events including Mission Discovery, Astronaut Leadership Experiences and Multi-Academy Trust STEM projects. These have served children and young people from challenging backgrounds across the UK across a ten-year span.

Business gains huge impact from mature Social Value strategies. Guy helps each business evolve their own Social Value Strategy. This means that partnerships with ISSET can bring sustainable benefits to employees, customers, and their communities.

Why just mop the floor, when you can mop the floor to put men and women on the Moon’.

Webjects create innovative platforms for a varied scope of high performing businesses. Their ideology is all about simplicity, however complex the project..

After 10 years in the industry they’ve not only perfected customer orientated websites but built a family of clients who wouldn’t go anywhere else for web design and development.

Launch Prize is thrilled to have partnered with such a strong reliable local brand.

Scott Kelly is a former military fighter pilot and test pilot, an engineer, a retired astronaut, and a retired U.S. Navy captain. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions and was a member of the yearlong mission to the ISS. In October 2015, he set the record for the total accumulated number of days spent in space, the single longest space mission by an American astronaut.

Nicole's experience includes 2 spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space on the International Space Station, including 1 spacewalk!

Nicole painted the first watercolour in space, and as an artist she combines her artwork and spaceflight experience to inspire creative thinking about solutions to our planetary challenges.

Astronaut Steve Swanson has flown on 2 Space Shuttle missions and 1 Russian Soyuz mission. He was the commander of the International Space Station and he’s completed 4 spacewalks!

Steve was also honoured with several awards including NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal.

At ISSET, Steve is an operations consultant. He brings decades of experience in elite roles to help us make our students dreams a reality.

Dr Michael Foale is the most experienced British astronaut in the history of spaceflight. He has logged a total of 375 days in orbit! In his 26-year career as a NASA Astronaut, Mike flew on several shuttle and Soyuz missions and even serviced the Hubble telescope.

Mike has guided thousands of students in various STEM outreach programmes over the past 10 years, working alongside ISSET Directors. He is a senior judge for ISSET's various challenges. He makes sure we select the best experiments before sending them to his old colleagues on the International Space Station!

Legendary NASA astronaut Tony Antonelli shares heaps of invaluable advice to ISSET students. He piloted two space shuttle missions STS-119 and STS-132 to the International Space Station. The space missions delivered power-generating solar arrays and the Russian Mini-Research Module 1 to the ISS.

Tony is an engineer and a US Navy test pilot. He currently leads a team that is formulating the future benefits and operations of the International Space Station.

Barbara Morgan is an American teacher and astronaut and is the first teacher to travel into space! She flew on the space shuttle Endeavour on Aug. 8, 2007, on STS-118. The mission was an assembly-and-repair trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

Barbara operated the shuttle’s and station’s robotic arms to install hardware on the ISS and to support spacewalks. Whilst in space, she also conducted lessons for school children!

Dave is a Canadian Astronaut, Medical Doctor, Cardiac and Nero Surgeon and pioneer of telemedicine. He has flown on 2 Space Shuttle missions and completed 17 hours of spacewalks (which earned him a Canadian record). His first mission was called Neurolab, which studied the effects of microgravity on the brain and the nervous system with the crew as subjects and operators of the experiments.

Veteran NASA astronaut Bill McArthur lived in space for nearly 8 months on board the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle and the Russian Space Station Mir.

He has travelled almost 16 million kilometres (10 million miles) in space.

Following his expeditions, Bill went on to manage the Space Shuttle Safety and Mission Assurance Office, then the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project. Since 2011, he has been the director of Johnson’s Safety and Mission Assurance directorate.