Our Executive Mentors

Lauren Lyons

Lauren is the founder and CEO of an aerospace engineering and operations network called vdot, which specializes in deploying rare, expert talent to help space companies execute on hard problems fast. Prior to that, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Firefly Aerospace, worked in engineering leadership at Blue Origin, and was a senior engineer and technical program manager at SpaceX where she played pivotal roles in the early days of the Starlink program. And on the side, she moonlit as a host for the SpaceX launch webcasts, where she co-hosted the livestream of first ever commercial launch of astronauts to space, and won an Emmy Award for the SpaceX-NASA Demo-1 livestream.

Prior to joining the commercial space industry, Lauren was a science writer, taught leadership courses at Harvard, worked on Mars robots and solar system public engagement at NASA/JPL, and developed novel spinal implant technologies at Medtronic. As a U.S. Citizen splitting her time between the US and Europe, Lauren spends her spare time mentoring space startups across the world in the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator; serving on the XPRIZE Space Exploration Brain Trust; mentoring young, black engineers as part of the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship; and serving on the advisory board of early stage aerospace and cleantech startups. 

Lauren earned her bachelor's degree from Princeton University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering with certificates in Engineering Biology and Robotics & Intelligent Systems. Her master's degree is in Business & Government Policy from the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she wrote her thesis in partnership with NASA on getting the general public engaged in Space Exploration