Rogan Shimmin is Senior Engineer and Technical Program Manager for the Defense Innovation Unit’s space portfolio, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He manages projects from high specific energy batteries and universal docking adapters to radiation hardened microelectronics. He currently leads the hybrid space architecture, an ambitious program to connect secure internet access through every spacecraft in orbit.

Born in Adelaide, Australia, Rogan earned undergraduate degrees in mechatronics engineering, mathematics and computer science from the University of Adelaide and a doctorate in spacecraft mission design at the Institute for Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. At NASA Ames Research Center in 2009 Rogan was the chief systems architect for a fledgling nanosatellite program called PhoneSat which spun off a company called Planet. After missing his Silicon Valley unicorn opportunity, Rogan spent three years at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston writing flight software and statistical safety analysis tools for the Orion capsule. He then entered the USAF training pipeline to become a Rescue Combat Systems Officer flying the HC-130J Hercules. Rogan is Adjunct Faculty at the non-profit International Space University, and was a founding staff member of ISU’s Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program.

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