Tess is a vice president based in the Silicon Valley office primarily focused on frontier tech, specifically commercial space, drones, and autonomous vehicles. She currently serves as board director for Phantom Auto and Spire Global and board observer for DroneDeploy, Impossible Aerospace, Iris Automation, Rocket Lab, Velo3D, Forever Oceans, Crosschq, and Smule.
Previously, she was a mission manager at SpaceX where she worked with the government on integrating its payloads with the Falcon9 rocket. She also worked at Fictiv, a startup using 3D printing and CNC machining to democratize access to manufacturing.
Tess earned a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford. She is passionate about space exploration and imagines a future where we all travel to space. She hopes to make the trip herself soon.