Our Executive Mentors

LAURA SEWARD FORCZYK

Laura Forczyk is the owner of space consulting firm Astralytical specializing in space science, industry, and policy, and offering space career coaching services.

She is a NASA Subject Matter Expert for planetary science missions. She serves on the advisory boards for the Lifeboat Foundation and the Society of Women in Space Exploration. She serves as a mentor for the Brooke Owens Fellowship program. She is the author if Rise of the Space Age Millennials.

Prior to forming her own company, Forczyk ran the Florida office of international startup working to establish parabolic and suborbital flight at Kennedy Space Center and globally. She has also worked as a scientific analyst for a nonprofit facilitating over 50 experiments on the International Space Station for the benefit of life on Earth.

She has researched astrophysics and planetary science at three NASA centers, flown two parabolic "Zero G" campaigns, conducted geological research in a meteor crater, and earned National Aerospace Training and Research (NASTAR) suborbital astronaut wings in ground training. She is a six-time U.S. Space Camp alumna, a NASA Academy alumna, a former NASA Student Ambassador, and a previous NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program fellow.

Forczyk earned a Bachelor of Science in astrophysics from Florida Institute of Technology. She earned a Master of Science in astrophysics from the University of Alabama in Huntsville researching high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts. She conducted doctoral studies in planetary science at the University of Central Florida researching low-energy impacts and regolith (dust) dynamics on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.