OUR TEAM
Our core team is complemented by an international network of AstroAnalytica experts and consultants with specialist skills and deep regional knowledge.
We draw on our global resources to form project teams that can tackle even the most challenging client briefs.
Gabriel Elefteriu FRAeS
FOUNDING PARTNER
-
Gabriel is a co-founder of AstroAnalytica. He also serves as Deputy Director (with a research focus on Defence and Space Policy) at the Council on Geostrategy in London. Previously he was Director of Research and Strategy, and member of the Senior Management Team at Policy Exchange, one of the UK’s leading and most influential policy-oriented think tanks where he also founded and directed Britain’s first dedicated Space Policy Unit.
In his UK policy and advocacy work, Gabriel operates at the intersection between 10 Downing Street, Whitehall departments, Parliament and the space industry, as well as external entities such as the European Space Agency. His background expertise is in space affairs, defence, foreign policy and strategy, with a particular emphasis on (defence) net assessment.
Gabriel is also a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy; an Associate of King’s College; and an elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the world’s preeminent learned society in the field, where he also serves on the Space Specialist Group’s Steering Committee.
John B Sheldon PhD
FOUNDING PARTNER
-
John is a co-founder of AstroAnalytica. He has over 25 years of government and analytical experience in national security space policy and strategy, and strategic analysis. John was Professor of Space and Cyber Power Strategic Studies at the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, United States, and in that position also consulted for U.S. Air Force Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. National Security Council on national security space issues. John has also advised the Japanese, Polish, and Saudi governments on national security and civil space policy, and from 2016 to 2021 was an adviser to the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence on national security space matters and also helped set up their Strategic Analysis Directorate where he led numerous net assessments on a range of defence topics.
Additionally, John is the Emeritus founding editor of the peer-reviewed space policy journal Astropolitics and was founding publisher of the online portal SpaceWatch.Global. John has published numerous articles, chapters, and essays on space power in publications including The RUSI Journal, Space News, and Engelsberg Ideas.
Michelle Howard
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
-
Michelle is an Associate Partner at AstroAnalytica. She is a lead government relations and strategic policy advisor in the defence and space sectors. Her early career spanned a number of operationally sensitive government programmes across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and East Africa. She moved into the private sector in 2009, establishing Babcock International Group’s regional business in Abu Dhabi. In 2012, Michelle joined Serco Middle East to lead new defence business. Since moving to the UK in 2016, she has served as an independent consultant in business intelligence, policy research, and government affairs.
Michelle is an accomplished linguist, speaking fluent Arabic and German as well as conversational French, Thai and Swahili. She holds a BA in Political Studies, from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and a MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She is currently a PhD Candidate at King’s College, London in the Defence Studies Department.
Marco Aliberti
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
-
Marco is an Associate Partner at AstroAnalytica. He also works as Associate Manager and Lead on International Engagement at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in Vienna, the only pan-European think-tank providing decision-makers with an informed view on short to long-term issues relevant to the European space policy. Since 2020, he is also a Research Consultant at the Space Power and Policy Applied Research Consortium (SPPARC) established by Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. In his 10+ years of research experience, Mr. Aliberti has carried out and published a number of research projects in the areas of space safety and security, governance and international space politics, and Asia’s space programmes, particularly those of China, Japan and India. He is the author of six books and dozens of policy papers, conference proceedings and public reports on space policy matters. Prior to joining ESPI in 2012, he had experience in the private sector. As per his academic background, he graduated with honours in Oriental Languages and Cultures at the University of Rome in 2008. He also holds two masters in international studies and is currently pursuing a PhD in international space governance.
Daniel Porras
ASSOCIATE PARTNER
-
Daniel Porras is an Associate Partner at AstroAnalytica. He is also Director of Space and Sustainability Policy at Rogue Space Systems, an American orbital robotics company, where he is in charge of international legal and regulatory affairs as well as implementation of sustainable best practices for Rogue's operations. Daniel also holds Non-Resident Fellowships at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), where contributes his expertise to topics related to space security and the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.
Daniel has worked in the field of international space law and policy for over fifteen years, the bulk of which was spent working with the UN Conference on Disarmament on security threats related to the long-term sustainability of space activities. He was the in-house expert for numerous multilateral processes related to space security, including the EU's draft International Code of Conduct and the UN's Group of Governmental Experts on elements for a legally binding instrument for space activities. Daniel also served as the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications for Secure World Foundation.
Leyton Wells
SENIOR ANALYST
-
Leyton is a Senior Analyst at AstroAnalytica. He is also a Policy Adviser on Emerging Technologies at the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. He graduated from University College London in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in Science and Technology Studies, specialising in science and technology policy and producing his final dissertation on the governance of innovation in the space sector. He then joined the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in Vienna as a Researcher in 2018 before returning to London as an International and Policy Coordinator at the Institute of Physics. After that, Leyton was appointed Research Fellow for Space Policy and Technology at the leading UK think tank, Policy Exchange - the first such role in Westminster. At the Royal Society, Leyton currently works on a space project looking at policy considerations for emerging space technologies out to 2075.
More broadly, Leyton has an interest in structures and mechanisms for governing space, the relationship between public and private actors, and the governance of emerging technologies in the sector.
Rebecca Lowe PhD
CONSULTING SPACE PHILOSOPHER
-
Dr Rebecca Lowe is Consulting Space Philosopher at AstroAnalytica. She is a political philosopher, with a particular interest in rights and freedom. Alongside academic writing and public philosophy, she works on political and economic research issues as a consultant, including an ongoing engagement as Research Director at a patient-capital investment company.
She is the former Director of FREER, a think tank advancing economically and socially liberal ideas. She has worked for various other research organisations, including Policy Exchange, where she was State and Society Fellow, and Convenor of the Research Group on Political Thought. She is a Senior Reader at the Canterbury Institute. Her recent publications include a chapter on the democratic state’s obligation of transparency, for an edited volume called ‘Political Philosophy in a Pandemic’; an entry on Locke’s conception of justice, for the Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy; and a paper on property rights in space, for the Adam Smith Institute.
Her paper on space property rights, which drew on her philosophical thinking about moral property rights and reflects her longtime interest in space, received extensive press coverage, including featuring on the front page of the Daily Star; articles about it were published in the FT, the Independent, the Guardian, on the Hill website, and many other places. Her further public philosophy on the topic of space includes recent articles for the IAI website and for Reason Magazine.