OUR TEAM
Our SPACEAIMS team has top space specialists with deep cross-disciplinary expertise in politics, national security, economics, business, law, military strategy, and policy. We pool our knowledge, decades of experience in a variety of settings, and extensive networks around the world to A.B.E.T.℠ you in your enterprise and endeavors. For all communications to any team member, please contact us at info@spaceaims.com.
Saadia M. Pekkanen
Saadia M. Pekkanen is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. In addition to this appointment in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, she is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Law where she also teaches courses. She earned Master’s degrees from Columbia University and Yale Law School, and a doctorate from Harvard University in government.
Her research reflects her training in international relations and international law, spanning the law and policy of outer space affairs, the geopolitics of critical infrastructure investment, and the foreign affairs of Japan in Asia and the world. She has published a half dozen books on these themes, bringing together economic, political, and legal strands to better analyze the changing fortunes of the contemporary world order. She is a member of the International Institute of Space Law. She serves as Founding Co-Chair of the U.S.-Japan Space Forum, and is Founding Co-Director of the Space Policy and Research Center (SPARC) at the University of Washington.
Kristi Morgansen
Kristi Morgansen received a BS and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, respectively in 1993 and 1994, an S.M. in Applied Mathematics in 1996 from Harvard University and a PhD in Engineering Sciences in 1999 from Harvard University. Until joining the University of Washington, she was first a postdoctoral scholar then a senior research fellow in Control and Dynamical Systems at the California Institute of Technology. She joined the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the summer of 2002.
Her research interests focus on nonlinear systems where sensing and actuation are integrated, stability in switched systems with delay, and incorporation of operational constraints such as communication delays in control of multi-vehicle systems. Applications include both traditional autonomous vehicle systems such as fixed-wing aircraft and underwater gliders as well as novel systems such as bio-inspired underwater propulsion, bio-inspired agile flight, human decision making, and neural engineering. The results of this work have been demonstrated in estimation and path planning in unmanned aerial vehicles with limited sensing, vorticity sensing and sensor placement on fixed wing aircraft, landing maneuvers in fruit flies, joint optimization of control and sensing in dynamical systems, and deconfliction and obstacle avoidance in autonomous systems and in biological systems including fish, insects, birds, and bats. She is a member of the Defense Science Board in the United States Department of Defense. She is the Founding Co-Director of the Space Policy and Research Center (SPARC), and is presently serving as the Chair of the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington.
P.J. Blount
P.J. Blount received a Ph.D. in Global Affairs, Rutgers University, 2016; an M.S. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University, 2015; an LL.M., Public International Law from King’s College London, 2007; a J.D from the. University of Mississippi School of Law, 2006; and a B.A./A.B.J., University of Georgia, 2002. He is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance at the University of Luxembourg. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the LL.M in the Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and in the Department of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University. Previously, he served as Research Counsel for the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air, and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law; an adjunct professor at New Jersey City University, and as a Visiting Scholar at the Beijing Institute of Technology School of Law. His teaching includes courses such Space Security Law, International Telecommunications Law, Cyberlaw, International Law, Human Rights Law, Intellectual Property, and US Foreign Policy.
Blount’s primary research areas are legal issues related to space security and cyberspace governance. He has published and presented widely on the topic of space security law and has given expert testimony on space traffic management before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space. Blount serves as the co-editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the IISL; as a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Space Law; and as an editorial board member of the Journal of Astrosociology. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Space Law. He is a member of the State Bar of Georgia.
Ben Dennis
Benjamin Dennis received his doctorate in economics from Harvard in 1996.
He has been a tenured professor of economics; a consultant to central banks and finance ministries; a lead economist for the Millennium Challenge Corporation focusing on economic growth and development; a senior staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers; a US Treasury Department senior staff member on issues ranging from regional affairs in South and Southeast Asia to the chief economist’s office for international affairs to international banking and finance, to international financial institutions; an adjunct professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy; and a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Corey Crosbie
Colonel Corey Crosbie has served with the United States Army for the last 24 years.
Corey is an expert trainer, having spent most of his career leading and training large organizations in preparation for worldwide contingencies and combat using various live, virtual, constructive, and gaming environments in an effort to ready those organizations and soldiers.
Over the last five years, as part of an executive training team, Corey planned and managed large live and virtual war games for organizations to respond and assess performance across the military spectrum of operations.
He holds a Master’s Degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma, a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Business from Emporia State University, and most recently was the US Army War College Asia/Pacific Fellow with the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies.
Kelli Hooke
Kelli Hooke is a senior corporate counsel focused on public sector compliance and unmanned aerial systems. Kelli is also highly involved in the American Bar Association; she is a Co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Drone Law Committee, and an active member of the Space Law committee and Public Sector Contracting Law division.
She recently retired from the Army after twenty years of service. Her service included advising commanders on extensive regulations, statutes and treaty obligations both here in the U.S and abroad. Her career as an Army attorney provided her opportunities to practice diverse legal disciplines as she has progressed into challenging assignments relating to the whole lifecycle of government contracting to top secret space and cyber operations. She has published and presented widely on the topics of space security law, drone law, and government contracting.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Hooke holds a Masters of Law (L.L.M) from The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, a Juris Doctor from Regent University, a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of Oklahoma (Magna Cum Laude), and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the Henry M. Jackson School of the University of Washington (Cum Laude). She is a member of the International Institute of Space Law.