Lessons from Tomorrow’s Leaders

Female Students Reflect on Mentoring with Female Leaders in the Space Industry

At most conferences, brilliant, C-suite executives and senior leaders talk on stage while students sit in the audience, wishing they had the opportunity or audacity to ask real questions. For UNSW Sydney CubeSat+ 2025, we wanted to flip that dynamic.

CubeSat+ brings together leading scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to explore the next frontier in small satellite technology. CubeSat+ organizer Andrew Dempster had asked Interlune for help shaping something meaningful for women in space, and the concept was simple: pair students with mentors ahead of the event, let the students ask what they actually wanted to ask off-stage, then have them present what they learned on-stage. 

We brought together 10 female mentors from startups, engineering leadership, investing, academia, and space law, and matched them with six female engineering students who wanted to pursue careers in the space industry. Each group ran its own conversation, then at the conference, the students shared the takeaways that mattered most to them—what helped, what didn’t, and what the industry can do right now to back early-career women with real opportunities. In this format, the students weren’t passive listeners; they were the ones synthesizing what they had learnt to teach the room. 

Here are three key themes that students shared:

1. Navigating Assumptions and Double Standards

Students heard a consistent anecdote from mentors: at some point in their career, most of the female engineers with advanced degrees had been asked, “Is there an engineer I can speak to?” Students also heard that for women, outcomes are respected, but tone can be policed. One mentor who led a 50-person team and had spent a decade building deep expertise, recounted a board telling her, “We agree with everything you said, but we didn’t like your tone.”

The net effect of assumptions and double standards, students noted, is to drain confidence and time—as much for the women who are subject to assumptions as for the colleagues who make the assumptions. Students wanted to be judged for their abilities as engineers, and not for their gender. For students, the contrast with other contexts was striking: in the UAE, women reportedly make up the majority in engineering programs and space roles, proving that the constraint isn’t female abilities; it’s attitudes and culture.

2. Feminine Traits as Strength

Mentors encouraged students to lead with their actual edge—traits dismissed as “feminine” in school can be mission-critical in aerospace: collaboration, communication, reflection, and storytelling. Students reflected that differences can in fact be advantages. One student said the biggest shift was realizing she didn’t need to “fit in with the guys;” another mentor described using others’ underestimation to win tough negotiations in space-law settings. A third mentor, raised in a European context, said she’d never struggled with imposter syndrome because it was clear the unique value she contributed to businesses she’d been part of - usefully puncturing the default narrative that every woman must take on a more masculine demeanor in order to succeed.

3. Confidence Follows Contact - Get Hands on Hardware (and Decisions)

The students were blunt about tokenism: there is plenty of talk about “more women in STEM,” but not enough backing or delegation of responsibility to match it. One student recounted a scholarship celebrated publicly that later wasn’t supported in practice; or being invited into spaces with senior classmates, but finding that younger students weren’t really included and stuck to a corner together. 

The students’ recommendation was to give early-career women concrete, ownable scopes (write and run the thermal-vac plan; close the test; brief stakeholders), not shadow roles. That’s what builds judgment and flight-ready confidence.

At CubeSat+, the students didn’t just listen; they led. They named the frictions, reframed strengths as mission assets, and asked for responsibility, not sympathy. The industry has legacy assumptions, but the vector is positive thanks to many female leaders—including the mentors engaged in this activity—who demonstrate their value in the face of assumptions and create opportunities for women to develop hands-on experience in engineering and project management.

The Mentors

Kara Vargo
Kara Vargo is the VP of Engineering at Interlune, a company focused on commercializing space resources, starting with harvesting helium-3 from the Moon. She holds a B.S.E. in Earth Science Systems and Engineering and an M.E. in Space Systems from the University of Michigan. Her prior experience includes managing a portfolio of space programs and a team of engineers to design, build, and test spacecraft at Metrea Orbital Effects, serving as an Over the Air Test Director and Mission Director at OneWeb, and working as a Systems Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center where she led the design for instruments comprising the Lunar Near-Infrared.

Kayla Rajsky
Kayla Rajsky is a Senior Mechanical Engineer at Interlune. She has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.E. in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University. Her prior experience includes developing custom internally-piloted solenoid valves for Rocket 4 at Astra, hydrogen fuel cell systems and space hardware at First Mode, and liquid hydrogen turbopumps at Blue Origin.

Aude Vignelles
Aude is the Founder and Executive Director at Vignelles Space. Her prior experience includes serving as the inaugural Chief Technology Officer for the Australian Space Agency, acting as Director of Satellite Payloads & Telecoms at Optus, and holding multiple roles at the European Space Agency (ESA), including Head of System Engineering Office, Deputy Head of Ground Segment Team, and Test Manager. She has also worked at EADS Astrium, Technicolor, nbn and Foxtel.

Tess Hatch
Tess is a Managing Director at Stifel Bank. She has a M.S. in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree in the same field from the University of Michigan, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Her prior experience includes serving as a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she was a deep tech investor, and as Board Director for Halter and Lumachain. She also held Board Director and Board Observer positions at companies such as Spire and Rocket Lab.

Lily Qiao
Dr. Lily (Li) Qiao is a Senior Lecturer in Space Systems Engineering at UNSW Canberra, focusing on guidance, navigation and control (GNC), GNSS-based autonomous navigation, and Kalman-filtering for space missions. She holds a PhD in GNC from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and completed a visiting PhD stint at UNSW on GNSS satellite orbit determination. Her prior experience includes serving as a Research Associate at UNSW/ACSER, where she contributed to the Australian SAR Formation Flying Satellite Mission, then as Senior Research Associate and Lecturer at UNSW Canberra.

Rachel Olney
Rachel Olney is the Chief Technology Officer of Arkenstone Defence and the Founder & former CEO of Geosite, a geospatial software platform. After Geosite’s 2024 acquisition by Descartes Labs—and subsequent integration into EarthDaily—she headed insurance at Descartes Labs and later served as GM for EarthDaily’s insurance business. She also teaches Technology & National Security at Stanford. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.

Anne Bettens
Anne Bettens is the CEO and Co-Founder of Deneb Space, a Sydney startup advancing autonomous satellite technologies (ADCS) to automate space operations. She holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Sydney focused on vision-based navigation, and is an Associate Lecturer there. Her prior research includes a JPL visiting stint on ShadowNav for lunar rover localization, SmartSat CRC work with Thales, and roles at ISAE-SUPAERO and HEO Robotics.

Liz Pearce
Liz Pearce is Program Manager for Space & Satcom at KBR, leading space programs with a focus on space domain awareness for Defence. Previously she held roles at the Australian Space Agency (Assistant Manager, then A/g Director for Space Transportation & Human Spaceflight), was a Physicist at DSTG, and a Space-Weather Specialist at the Bureau of Meteorology. She holds a PhD from UNSW on Data Integrity in Autonomous Vehicles and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Newcastle.

Shivani Torres
Shivani Torres is VP, GTM Global at Newlab, leading growth and partnerships across the mining value chain and critical minerals. Previously, she co-founded Petra (CPO; ex-VP Eng/Board), won the 2023 ISTT No-Dig Award, and is an MIT TR35 honoree. Her background spans bioengineering, robotics, and digital manufacturing—contributing to the Da Vinci SP surgical system and Carbon’s Mirror-enabled S-Works Power Saddle—and she has invested via Lemnos/Bee Partners with angel bets like Anduril and Gecko Robotics. She holds a B.S. in Bioengineering from Stanford University and recently moderated at Riyadh’s Future Minerals Forum.

Donna Lawler
Donna Lawler is Co-Founder and Principal at Azimuth Advisory, a specialist space-law firm advising governments and commercial operators. With nearly 20 years in the sector—including six GEO satellite build-and-launch programs—she focuses on complex transactions across satellite procurement, launch, and regulatory matters. Previously she spent almost two decades at Optus (culminating as Assistant General Counsel, Wholesale & Satellite) and earlier practiced tech/telecoms law at Baker & McKenzie (Hong Kong) and MinterEllison (Sydney).

The Students

Rhea Barar
Rhea is a graduate Mechatronics Engineer at the University of New South Wales and a 2023 CubeSatPlus HEO Robotics Scholarship Student. She has recently completed her honours thesis on enhancing the Factor Graph Optimisation framework using opportunistic and multi-sensor fusion for autonomous spacecraft navigation. Key space engineering projects she has worked on include a Mars Regolith Collection Rover, and the design of an on-orbit servicing spacecraft.

Rishika Janarthanan
Rishika is a 4th year Aerospace student at the University of New South Wales and is involved in the design of the Attitude Determination and Control System for the student-led CubeSat team. She is currently working on her honor's thesis on Flywheel Implementation in a light propeller-driven plane.

Tiana Pendray
Tiana is a 2nd year Aerospace Engineering student at the University of New South Wales and is co-leading the structures team of the AUStronauts CubeSat Project. She was previously involved in radio astronomy and wrote her International Baccalaureate extended essay on “Pulsars and the Interstellar Medium.”

‍Kelly Chen
Kelly is a final year Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Sydney. She studies autonomous mission planning for Mars UAVs and is a UNISEC-Global finalist in Tokyo for a lunar CubeSat. She led the rover UAV team, coordinated the Astra Program, and presented on Astra and space communications at IAC Sydney.

Fyfa Main
Fyfa is a 2nd year Computer Science & Cybersecurity major at Victoria University of Wellington, and is leading the software teams for the Project Kororā cubesat mission. 

Rita Ganesh
Rita is a 2nd year Aeronautical with Space Engineering student at the University of Sydney and is leading the university’s satellite team, which she recently founded. She’s involved in several space projects, some of which include being a part of the organising committee for the Space Generation Congress 2025, serving as the current Secretary of AIAA USSB, and recently receiving the 2025 Astra Emerging Space Pioneer Award by the Astra Program and the Australian Youth Aerospace Association (AYAA).

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