Congratulations to Shoal’s Tom Cernev: 2022 IAF Emerging Space Leader
The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) has awarded Shoal’s Tom Cernev a place in the Federation’s 2022 Emerging Space Leaders Grant Programme.
More than 130 students and young professionals from over 60 countries throughout the world submitted applications to participate in the Programme.
As part of the grant 2022 IAF Emerging Space Leaders Grant Programme Tom will attend the 73rd International Astronautical Congress in Paris, France in September 2022.
The individuals selected will also participate in other activities held the week prior to and during the Congress such as the UN/IAF Workshop or the Space Generation Congress (SGC) and the Cross-Cultural Communications and Presentation Workshop.
Tom is a Space Systems Engineer at Shoal Group who manage and deliver systems engineering solutions for the most complex environments. Through his work on large space projects, Tom is contributing to the Australian Space Agency’s goal to triple the size of the Australian space sector by 2030.
As 1 of 30 worldwide participants, Tom applied for the program, with an abstract for a Technical Session and Participation in the Next Generation Plenary and an essay – demonstrating he is a Citizen of the Space Community and his contributions in academia and as a young space professional to date.
As a researcher at the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources at the University of Adelaide (UoA), Tom is part of the Lunar Construction Group, uniting the university’s collective exploration, mining, manufacturing and engineering research strengths to address the challenges faced by long term planetary exploration, while ensuring the near-term application here on Earth. Tom has authored a paper for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022.
Using the guiding principles from UN COPUOS, Tom believes that space is the ultimate field for international cooperation. Any long-term success in space exploration is dependent on humanity’s ability to work together, foster innovation, and use expertise from around the world. For humanity to successfully return to the Moon, for good, and to Mars and beyond we must work together.