Alissa J. Haddaji

Founder/ President/ Director

Prof. Alissa J. Haddaji is the founder, president and director of The Space Consortium and of Space Week at Harvard. She is a faculty researcher at Harvard University, where she created and teaches Harvard and Harvard Law School’s first Space Law, Policy and Ethics curriculum. She also launched and teaches Boston College Law School’s and Paris-Saclay University’s  Space Law, Policy and Ethics courses. Prof. Haddaji specializes in International Space Threat Management (Planetary Protection/Planetary Defense). In 2014, she joined the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) as their Planetary Protection Project Officer, before becoming in 2017, the lead coordinator of the United Nations’ SMPAG Legal Working Group on Planetary Defense. In parallel to her Consortium, teaching and SMPAG work, she currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the International Astronautical Federation’s Near Earth Object & Planetary Defense committee and as a United Nations Space4Women mentor. Previously to her Planetary Defense work, Prof. Haddaji was a senior researcher in space economics at Harvard Business School, a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a visiting scholar at the GWU Space Policy Institute. She holds a PhD in Science and Technology Studies, and Master’s Degrees in Planetary Science (spe. oceanography), History/International Relations, Political Science, Law and Socio-Anthropology, from Brown University, La Sorbonne University and Bordeaux 1 University.