The EMER-GEN® 2025 program brought together a dynamic cohort of 41 young professionals and students, as well as mentors from across the globe for an immersive experience focused on innovation, collaboration, and leadership in space sustainability. A joint initiative of the AMOS Conference and the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), the program presented by the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB), continues to serve as a launchpad for the next generation of space leaders.
Guest speakers; speed mentoring; consensus building and an innovation challenge engaged the participants in lively discussions and brainstorming sessions for the exchange of innovative ideas and developing leadership skills. Networking opportunities further fostered connections that could help shape their careers. Designed for young professionals and students enthusiastic about careers in space, the cohort included nineteen Hawaii-based participants.
“Now in its 8th year, the EMER-GEN program stays fresh and relevant with input from young professionals of our program committee,” said Annette Lynch, Director of Communications with MEDB and manager of the EMER-GEN Program. “Our industry connections are also a great source of knowledge in the rapidly evolving field of space and we are grateful to the support given by these experts to the next generation of space leaders.”
The specific challenges and topics within the program were shaped this year with the help of three young professionals. Two representatives were nominated by SGAC – Aishling Dignam is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from Ireland based in Chile at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; and Mahhad Nayer, a PhD Student, Graduate Research Assistant at Purdue University. They were joined by Maui resident, Katie Stevens, an Application Engineer at the Maui High Performance Computing Center.
Pre-Webinar Series: Setting the Space
The program began with a series of pre-webinars designed to introduce participants to its central themes before they met on Maui, Hawaii for a two-and-a-half-day immersive program. The first webinar introduced the cohort to this year’s Innovation Challenge – an Orbital Treasure Hunt, that was designed with the help of Tom Kubancik of Trusted Space, along with program committee member Mahhad Nayyer.
Nayyer explained the challenge statement: “How can we systematically identify, remediate, or repurpose valuable objects in Earth’s orbit—while creating new business ventures, advancing technology, ensuring security, reducing collision risk, and establishing policy frameworks to sustain these activities?”
Darren McKnight of LeoLabs was a guest speaker on the first webinar where he explored the concept of exploiting innovation to address orbital debris. He encouraged the cohort to explore it not just as a risk but as a source of hidden value.
A second webinar brought together a panel of experts to discuss the challenge from different perspectives. Moderator of the panel, Nayyer, summarized the discussion: “Emmanuelle David from EPFL Space Center emphasized the multidisciplinary nature of space sustainability and frameworks for measuring responsible behavior. Christopher Dreyer, Colorado School of Mines, highlighted how space resources could enable humanity to reuse and repurpose materials in orbit, laying foundations for larger missions and industry beyond Earth. Space Lawyer, Michelle Hanlon, University of Mississippi stressed how legal frameworks must evolve to keep pace with orbital activities. Jeffrey Leeder from Redwire reframed “treasure” in orbit, showing how mobility, awareness, and collaboration are the real currencies for sustainable growth. Bo Naasz of NASA shared insights into in-space servicing and spacecraft lifetime extension.”
The cohort had just 3 hours on Tuesday of the in-person EMER-GEN program to formulate their ideas and solutions and then come up with a 7-minute pitch for a panel of judges. The three judges were: Paul Kervin, AFRL, retired and AMOS Technical Chair; Arthur Grijalva, SpaceWERX; and Shadi Naderi, KBR.
The judges were unable to separate two teams and for the first time there was a tie with both teams being announced the winner of the 2025 EMER-GEN Innovation Challenge. ChromeDepot was a LEO Debris Collection Platform devised by team members Parker Breman, Jhon Leo Gabion, Aidan Lorenz, Jharrel Sim and Binyamin Stivi. Fuel3 was a mobile refueling depot in Super-GEO orbit, enabling cost-effective, reusable refueling designed by Miles Puchner, Paul Rickershauser, Connor Segal, Jarren Seson and Di Wu. All team members receive an engraved bamboo surfboard trophy as well as bragging rights.
“This challenge pushed teams to design solutions across technical, policy, business, and security tracks, requiring them to balance creativity with practicality,” said Nayyer. “Watching them transform orbital hazards into opportunities was inspiring and underscored the value of collaboration across disciplines. For me, being part of the planning process and then seeing participants bring the challenge to life was deeply fulfilling.”
Tom Kubancik, Trusted Space, mentors a team during the EMER-GEN Innovation Challenge
Fuel3 works on refueling solution for EMER-GEN Innovation Challenge
Arthur Grijalva, Shadi Naderi and Paul Kervin, judges of EMER-GEN 2025
The Great Policy Game
The third pre-webinar set up the Great Policy Game. Tahara Dawkins of Astroscale explained the interactive real-life scenario of the game titled, ‘Fuel, Fallout and Fault Lines.’ In the webinar, Diane Howard Senior Strategy Advisor, MITRE Corporation, Principal, sur l’espace PLLC provided background on space policy that the teams would need for their role play.
During the game at EMER-GEN, the cohort were split into six teams representing either a country, a service provider for a specific country, or an independent SSA provider. Specific instructions were provided to each team as to how they would respond to an incident – an anomaly occurring during a refueling operation. The confusion and friction created by some teams disclosing information and others instructed not to, were designed to mimic existing scenarios. Contracts and agreements were layered in to provide further rules of engagement.
“Trying to share information, trying to find out if there was an anomaly, is it classed as an anomaly if it was in mission parameters, how were we licensing our satellites? These were all questions that were raised during the game and an analog to a situation that could potentially happen,” explained Aishling Dignam in an overview presentation to the AMOS Conference audience later in the week.
“The policy game was amazing,” said Ryan Clark of MDA Space from Canada. “Coming from engineering, we never see this side of things. Being able to see it from the other perspective is game changing—it is what you need to develop an optimal solution. I’m going to consider policy a lot more and especially legality. I learned that as much as there is space policy, it is very hard to be enforceable—it’s very hard to see where the line is.”
Tahara Dawkins, Astroscale leads the delegates through the process of the Great Policy Game at EMER-GEN 2025
Delegates negotiated and discussed strategies during the Policy Game at EMER-GEN 2025
In-person EMER-GEN
The cohort came together on Maui on Sunday, September 14 with an Aloha Reception at the Wailea Beach Resort, where participants connected over dinner and ice-breaking activities.
The following morning, the program opened with a cultural keynote by astrophysicist and Native Hawaiian, Dr. Brittany Kamai, who inspired attendees to ‘voyage into our future with the wisdom of our ancestors.’
“We learned the history of Polynesian voyaging and the revival of it with the Hōkūleʻa canoe. It proved to me that we didn’t get here by mistake and that we have to work hard to get to our next location,” said Katie Stevens making parallels to the journeys into space.
Dr. Brittany Kamai teaches the EMER-GEN delegates an Oli (Hawaiian chant)
The day continued with a provocative session by Doug Loverro, Loverro Consulting titled ‘Does Space need a Traffic Cop.’ Loverro has been a part of EMER-GEN since it’s inception in 2018 providing a presentation geared towards leadership in the space industry, as well as joining in the mentoring session.
“The main takeaway from this was that the quantity of objects in space was not the problem but rather the uncertainty of positioning of satellites that increases the risk of collision,” explained Stevens. “Sharing and collaborating of information will really help as a solution which can be difficult when people don’t want to share.”
Doug Loverro instructs EMER-GEN 2025 delegates
Career Mentoring
The EMER-GEN program draws upon the broad AMOS community to mentor and guide the young professionals and students. The speed mentoring session kicked off with each of the eleven mentors introducing themselves and providing their best tip for a young professional starting out in a space career. This provided a warm-up to the main event where the mentors would spend 15 minutes with a group of 3-4 from the cohort to answer their direct questions and share their experiences.
Mentors participating this year were: Rod Bennett, BAE Systems; Heather Cowardin, NASA Johnson Space Center; Lisa Frankford, KBR; Carolin Frueh, Purdue University; Jacqui Hoover, Hawaii Economic Development Board; Diane Howard, Mitre, sur l’espace; Moriba Jah, GaiaVerse; Doug Loverro, Loverro Consulting, LLC; Mark Mulholland, Independent Consultant; Jeff Sherk, The Aerospace Corporation; and Valerie Skarupa, Darkstar Space, LLC.
“People said it was interesting to hear that many mentors had jumped around doing different careers, or opportunities just appeared, and they had prepared for these opportunities in advance,” said Aishling Dignam, commenting on the mentoring session. “We need to be ready for an open door.”
Mentors were invited to join the cohort in a more informal venue at the Pau Hana reception that followed.
Career Pathway Panel EMER-GEN 2024 L to R: Michael Barton, a.i. solutions; Daron Nishimoto, MEDB and EO Solutions; Valerie Skarupa, Darkstar Space, LLC; Elizabeth Pierce, KBR; Major Sean Allen, SDA Tap Labs
Valerie Skarupa, Darkstar Space, LLC mentors a group at EMER-GEN 2025
Krystal Azelton, Secure World Foundation, shares career advice during EMER-GEN 2024
Technical Short Courses
The EMER-GEN program included the opportunity for the delegates to participate in one of the Technical Short Courses offered by the AMOS Conference. Presented by specialists in SSA, the courses serve to expand technical job skills and support developments in several different fields of interest. The courses offered a deep dive into topics such as event-based sensing, space debris and object characterization, decision intelligence for orbital security, and ground-based optical SDA.
Summary
EMER-GEN 2025 offered unique opportunities for the cohort to network with peers and industry leaders through the interactive sessions, breakfasts, lunches, and social receptions. It concluded with a closing session announcing the winners of the Innovation Challenge and reflecting on the cohort’s achievements.
“The experience of EMER-GEN was great,” said Nate McCoun of a.i. solutions participating for the second year. “I appreciate the fast-paced nature, diversity of thoughts and people, and the efforts that everyone puts in to actively participate.”
Lilian Royer, Maui High Performance Computing Center added, “I loved it, it exceeded my expectations. So many experiences were new and so clearly catered to our professional development. Getting to meet established professionals of such high caliber is such a rare opportunity.”
EMER-GEN and the AMOS Conference are presented by the Maui Economic Development Board, Inc. (MEDB), a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation established in 1982 with a mission to diversify Maui County’s economy, building pathways to innovation, jobs and opportunity for our residents. Through partnerships with the public and private sector, MEDB undertakes projects that assist growth industries with navigating and thriving in our county, educates and trains residents for new careers, and engages our community in forums that determine future economic directions.
Mahalo to Celestial sponsor BAE Systems for their support of EMER-GEN, along with LEO supporters Astroscale, HTDC and Trusted Space.
Save the dates for 2026—EMER-GEN Program on September 13-15 followed by the AMOS Conference September 15-18.
Networking at EMER-GEN 2025
Mentors join the Networking at EMER-GEN 2025
Networking at EMER-GEN 2025