panel > How a Sustainable Space Program Benefits Society

In this talk celebrating the Italian National Space Day, David Avino (Argotec, CEO) and Marco Lavalle (NASA JPL) will share their experience of working in space science and technology development, focusing on why the space program is relevant to our sustainability as humans on our planet. Through a number of examples ranging from Earth observations, to planetary missions with small satellites, to human return to the moon, the conversation, moderated by and Sara Susca (NASA JPL), will explore ongoing space activities and how they benefit all of us. The audience will learn about projects involving collaborations between Italian and American teams inspiring younger generations for a rewarding career in space science and exploration.

Recorded introductory remarks by H.E. Mariangela Zappia, Ambassador of Italy to the US.

Second event in the series “Building a sustainable future”, three outreach presentations featuring prominent Italians from Los Angeles area universities and the tech industry organized by the Consulate Genral of Italy in Los Angeles, the Italian Cultural Institute and ISSNAF – The Italian Scientists and Scholars of North American Foundation.

David Avino attended the Military Academy of Modena and the School of Applied Military Science of Turin, where he graduated in Computer Science at the University of Turin. Until 1998 he served in the Special Forces, and then began a career in aerospace. In 2005 he became operations manager of the first European long-duration mission on the International Space Station. In the same year he was also a certified NASA and ESA instructor. He returned to Italy in 2008 and founded Argotec, of which he is currently CEO. Argotec was selected by NASA to take part, as the only European company, in two important missions, Artemis 1 and DART.

Marco Lavalle is a scientist and group supervisor at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He holds a Master degree and a PhD degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rennes 1 in France. Marco moved to the US in 2010 as a NASA Postdoctoral Scholar working on mapping the 3D structure of trees from NASA/JPL airborne radar data. He is currently leading various science and technology development research projects related to future missions formulation and estimation of structural and dynamic biophysical characteristics of land.

Sara Susca was born on the Adriatic coast of Puglia and graduated from Politecnico di Milano in Aerospace Engineering in 2002. She then moved to UC Santa Barbara where she obtained her PhD in Electrical Engineering in December 2007. After three years at Honeywell working on vision-based navigation for robots she moved to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2011 working on a variety of projects including Europa Clipper to map the ice crust and subsurface ocean of Europa, and the Psyche mission to a metal asteroid. She is currently the Payload Systems Engineer for SPHEREx, a mission to explore the origins of the Universe.