Ashley Dove-Jay read a masters’ in aerospace engineering at the University of Liverpool before starting a PhD in morphing aerospace structures at the University of Bristol. He also graduated from the International Space University, reading space policy, law & economics.

Ashley has participated in and led various NASA/ESA-related projects and programmes - everything from spacecraft radiation hardening to space weather disaster mitigation. He has most notably led extensive astronauts-on-Mars simulated studies in the high-altitude Utah Desert at the Mars Desert Research Station in collaboration with more than two dozen scientific and academic institutes. Ashley is a popular science writer and public speaker.

Of Namibian origins, Ashley has also resided in South Africa, Belgium, USA, and now the UK. He is an avid hiker, having last year conducted a two-week solo expedition through the high-arctic tundra of Svalbard.