Dr. Yash Pathak is an internationally recognized scholar, researcher and educator in the areas of Nanotechnology, Drug Delivery Systems and Nutraceuticals. He received his M Pharm, PhD from Nagpur University India his Executive MBA, and Masters in Conflict Management from Sullivan University, Louisville, USA. His post-doctoral training was at Royal free Hospital London, UK, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and University of Michigan Medical Center at Ann Arbor Michigan USA. Presently, Dr. Pathak holds faculty appointments at the Full Professor rank in University of South Florida (USF) College of Pharmacy, in USF Morsani College of Medicine Internal Medicine in Nano Medicine, Division of Global Health, USF College of Public Health, and he serves as an Associate Dean for faculty Affairs at College of Pharmacy. He has also Adjunct appointment at University of West Indies Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr. Marlise Araújo dos Santos holds a degree in Pharmacy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1988), a Master's in Pharmacy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1993) and a Ph.D. in Drug Delivery and Absorption where she worked in development of formulating a nasal formulation for Space Motion Sickness and a system to assess the permeability of drugs in cells grown in simulated microgravity - Kings College London University of London (2006). She coordinated the Joan Vernikos Aerospace Pharmacy Laboratory at PUCRS for 10 years. She has 21 years of research experience in Aerospace Pharmacy, working mainly on the following topics: simulated hypergravity, simulated microgravity, involving cell culture, drug synthesis, medicinal plants and pharmaceutical technology (nanotechnology). She is the Board of Advisor Member for Aerospace Pharmacy and Telepharmacy at the British company InnovaSpace Space without Borders (https://www.innovaspace.org/). She holds 3 patents in the area, author of several scientific articles and two international awards. She gives lectures and courses in the Aerospace Pharmacy area at universities and conferences in different countries (India, Portugal, Trinidad Tobago, United States, Italy, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Romania). She is a member of the Space 4 Women international group, part of the Space & Extreme Environment Research Center at UFCSPA (https://spacecenterufcspa.org/). She is a volunteer evaluator for NASA postdoctoral projects in the area of Space Life Science. She is a Member of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth and Founder of the MyDigicare, a startup that provides remote pharmaceutical care, an area that she has 10 years of experience.
Dr. Luis Zea is an aerospace engineer and gravitational microbiology scientist who has been fortunate of having worked on over twenty scientific experiments performed on the Space Shuttle and/or the International Space Station and has served as Principal Investigator of projects going to lower Earth orbit and on an upcoming mission around the Moon, in NASA's Artemis I mission. His scientific work is based on the use of microgravity to find novel solutions to medical problems on Earth as well as to enable safe, long-term human spaceflight, including via biological in situ resource utilization. Luis served as the Co-Director of Guatemala’s first satellite, Quetzal-1, an Universidad del Valle de Guatemala student- and faculty-developed CubeSat. He has seen first-hand the benefits that space research & development has on societies, for which he is passionate of the democratization of access to space for peaceful purposes, international collaboration, and the academic preparation of the next generation.
