Moriba Jah

Dr. Moriba Jah is a renowned astrodynamicist and space environmentalist laying the foundation for a safe, prosperous, and sustainable near-Earth space environment. Specializing in orbit determination and prediction, especially as related to space situational awareness and space traffic monitoring, he serves as Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Privateer, working to keep space safe and accessible to all humankind. He is also an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Mrs. Pearlie Dashiell Henderson Centennial Fellowship in Engineering.

Additionally, Dr. Jah co-founded Moriba Jah Universal, LLC, in order to co-create media, art, and entertainment across a variety of platforms aimed at taking space environmentalism mainstream to spread awareness about space debris.

Dr. Jah previously worked as a spacecraft navigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was a navigator for the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration Rover, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, and the Royal Astronomical Society. He was selected into the 10th anniversary class of TED Fellows and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022. Previously, Dr. Jah was selected into the AIAA class of Fellows and Honorary Fellows in 2019, the year of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11.

Dr. Jah received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder.