Women at CPL: Part 4

In the previous blog posts, we introduced some of the amazing women behind the scenes at CPL spanning, operations, AI and mission architecture. In this post, we introduce the two leads of the Space Quantum Tech at Craft, incidentally both of whom are women.

Before going into their profiles, it seems like a good time to engage in a little discussion on: Why is highlighting women in leadership positions important? Or — let’s take a step back and ask, why is it important to have women in leadership positions?

Research shows that companies in the top quartile for executive-team gender diversity were 21% “more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.” But apart from the immediate profit benefits, it adds rightful representation as well as feeds into inclusive policymaking leading to lasting change. Women face challenges, stubborn stereotypes, and stigmas that are roadblocks to their advancement. Understanding those dynamics is the first step toward a more equal and productive workplace. More often than not, seeing someone who looks like them — visible role models, seeing diverse representations of their gender and diverse representations of what kind of women (tall, short, angry, quiet, bossy, loud, introverted, extroverted, black, white, brown…etc) make leaders, makes more women step -up and claim their rightful place in business. And at the end of the day, having women in visible leadership positions negates harmful stereotypes and slowly pushes back against biases and discrimination regarding the “rightful” position of women.

In one of our previous posts, we introduced the Mission Architecture Lead at Craft, Hazel Jeffrey. In this blog post, without further ado, we present to you our Space Quantum Tech leads.

Cassandra is a spacecraft and test engineer from Los Angeles. She started her career at NASA’s JPL, working on the Curiosity rover mission and developing new supersonic decelerators for Mars missions. Her expertise includes mechanical and test engineering. Her role at Craft Prospect is to design and build the QKD payload for the upcoming ROKS mission and she is currently also the Space Quantum Technologies Lead at Craft where she drives the rapid prototyping, miniaturisation and commercialisation of quantum technologies for CubeSats.

Outside of making cool space things, she loves backpacking through Scotland with her dog, finding new chocolate to try, and really dumb jokes. She just discovered the jokes on Penguin biscuits and her colleagues fear for their sanity.

In her own words, “I love jumping into new things, both professionally, with diving into new fields to keep on challenging myself, and personally, with taking up new hobbies like horse riding and archery!”

Working along with Cassandra, Dr. Sonali Mohapatra is the deputy lead of the Space Quantum Tech cell. With a PhD in quantum gravity and a background in fundamentals of quantum and general relativity, Sonali brings quantum and theoretical physics expertise into the space sector. She researches and translates quantum theory into cutting edge space payloads and is leading the company efforts towards the modelling of Quantum Key Distribution on satellites as part of the technical team of the upcoming ROKS mission. She has previous experience working in quantum computation, string theory, photonics and supported the gravitational wave prototype LIGO interferometer at Caltech.

Apart from this, Sonali considers herself a Jack of all Trades and a master of few — she is the founder of the queer/feminist platform, Carved Voices, a founding member of the SSLC New Voices in Space working group to promote diversity and inclusion in the space sector, sits on the board of QIndia and is the author of the poetry book, Leaking Ink. She was recently awarded the RISE Young Entrepreneur award for her efforts during the Covid crisis in India in 2020. She enjoys writing, speaking, singing, learning new skills and pondering upon the big questions in life. Her pet peeves are blackholes!

Cassandra and Sonali utilise their complementary expertise in Engineering and the Sciences respectively to come together and steer the progress of quantum technologies at CPL.