Chiara Manfletti holds a degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London, a masters degree in space studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg and a PhD from RWTH Aachen. She worked for the German Aerospace Center, DLR, as a research engineer in the field of liquid rocket propulsion and later joined the European Space Agency in 2016, where she was Head of Policy and Programmes Coordination at ESA. In March 2019 she was nominated the first President of the then just founded Portuguese national space agency, Portugal Space. Today she is Professor of Space Mobility and Propulsion at the Technical University of Munich in Germany and CEO of Neuraspace.