Bio

Chiara Moenter is currently working as a Young Graduate Trainee at ESA HQ in Paris for the Directorate of European, Legal and International Matters (DELI) focusing on the ESA Accelerators. This year she finished her MSc in Sustainability Science, Policy, and Society at Maastricht University, writing her thesis on the topic of Evaluating Appropriate Governance Arrangements for Sustainable Space Exploitation. Before that she completed her Bachelor’s in Business Administration studying Global Project and Change Management at Windesheim Honours College. For her thesis she conducted a research internship at the Office for Astronomy for Development looking at the contributions of astronomy and space sciences projects on the SDG Agenda. Over the past year, Chiara has been working as event coordinator, editor, and moderator at SpaceWatch.Global, a Europe-based, online platform for information in and about space and new space activities in a geopolitical context. In May 2020, she became the co-founder of the “SDG 18: Space for All” initiative. This initiative envisions ensuring the sustainable use of outer space, so that all of humanity can benefit. She is very passionate about ensuring and educating for space sustainability and will continue her work on this initiative in future research. Her interest in space began with the Overview Effect, to bring the topic of space closer to people and create a collective sense of responsibility. Furthermore, Chiara is a core member of Spacefluencers, a group focusing on influencing the future of space through entertaining, inspiring, and educating others. In October 2020 she gave a TED Talk on the importance of space protection and the Overview Effect. Chiara focuses on an interdisciplinary approach, as she believes that by collectively working on space protection bringing together different skills, a change can be created!