BALTICS IN SPACE
Is Baltics in Space in You?
Who We Are
Baltics in Space is Amara Graps (Grapa), Executive Director, Board members: Imants Kins and Anna Reynolds, and Advisor: Pauls Irbins.
Baltics in Space is just beginning. We have bigger dreams we are working hard to implement. Our next project is a FI-EE-LV-LT Climate Change CubeSat.
Background. This entity was born from Amara's years of challenging experiences in Latvian academia, when she started recognizing the university's missing Triple Helix principles. She decided that she could much better support the Baltic space workers as an independent entity.
Amara Graps' European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2017 Riga project pushed her to create this Baltics in Space nonprofit association in late Winter 2017. The first project of Baltics in Space: the local organization of the EPSC 2017 Riga was a success for the Baltic Region and Baltics in Space. See the international and local Feedback and Press in the EPSC 2017 Riga Final Report.
Baltics in Space first annual Board of Directors meeting, September 12, 2017.
Baltics in Space second annual Board of Directors meeting, hosted by Zinoo and Pauls Irbins, June 18, 2018.
Our Experience
Amara Graps (Grapa), Executive Director
Amara Graps, winner of the 2018 Europlanet Public Engagement Prize, has been working professionally in the Space field since 1982. Her life's work demonstrates a principle of career driving one's education, rather than the other way around.
Her PhD and postdoc scientific work is in cosmic dust charging and dynamics. She was a computational physicist for 18 years for twelve different research teams, publishing papers, before she earned her PhD in 2001.
Since her PhD, Amara Graps' largest project to date has been the development and implementation of the local organizing for the 1000-Abstract, 40 country-participant conference: EPSC 2017 Riga, where she led the local organization of a 4-country, nearly 200 person, and 145 KEuro successful effort.
Amara is now coordinating a larger project with ELLF: the Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania-Finland Climate Change Cubesat.
In scientific research, Amara has coordinated three research teams since 2009, and more in submitted research proposals. In her 38 years of ESA and NASA related missions support, she has analyzed data from 13 space missions and ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, California, and Arizona across a wide variety of solar system and astronomical data.
Amara Graps' full-CV.
Photo by Anrijs Požarskis
Amara Graps is an active advocate for
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asteroid mining,
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Eastern European planetary science,
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girls in STEM, and
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Baltic Space workers.
Imants Kins, Board Chair
Imants Kins is Executive Director of Pela Global Limited. Former consultant to DSI Latvia. Bachelor of Economics and MA Futures studies. He is a Futurist, Management Consultant, Business strategist, and Amara Graps' most important Mentor as she learns business strategy and navigates through the Entrepreneur world.
Anna Reynolds, Board Member
Anna Reynolds is a co-founder of Toastmasters Riga, a Latvian-English translator, a professional editor, and an educational consultant. Recent examples of her translation work can be found in the English pages of the Latvian Cultural Ministry LV-100 group. Recent English full document editing by Anna Reynolds can be found at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia.