Backed by her prior experience as Chief Health Innovation Officer for the NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), Dr. Sawyer leads innovation in space health as Founder/Director of the UCSF Space Health Innovation Center and the UC Space Health Program. Dr. Sawyer is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCSF Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies, a member of the UCSF IT Governance Committee, Co-Founder of the UCSF Center for Digital Health Innovation, and a practicing Orthopedist who is Founder/Director of the UCSF Skeletal Health Service.
“As we push the boundaries of human space exploration back out to the Moon and onward to Mars in this decade, the risks to crew health and safety increase significantly, as do the logistical challenges in mitigating them. Due to the extreme distance from Earth, there will only be asynchronous communication on deep space missions. This requires a shift from augmented to autonomous health and medical management. In this time of rapid development of spacecraft technology, there are equally exciting advances in remote medical technologies and computational sciences essential to optimizing astronaut health on long-duration missions. These innovative approaches to self-health and medical management will greatly expand the distributed health care capabilities that are critically needed on Earth,” Dr. Sawyer said.
Dr. Sawyer added that, as there will be no “re-supply” capability on deep space missions, there is great attention to sustainability and re-usability that will influence our approach to resource conservation on Earth.
Ignite’s Co-Founder and CEO, Rosemarie Truman, added, “Ignite launched with the goal of helping innovators advance Tech for Good and to democratize impact investing. Dr. Sawyer has incredible ‘wishions’ – melding wishes to turn them into realized vision – to advance tech for good beyond Earth and for the universe.”
