Mark N. Sirangelo

• Scholar in Residence for Space, Aerospace and Engineering at University of Colorado
• Founding executive and Former Head of Sierra Nevada Space Systems
• Founding member and past Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
• Founder and Chairman of eSpace, a nonprofit 

Dr. Mark N. Sirangelo currently is the Scholar in Residence for Space, Aerospace and Engineering at University of Colorado. He is also on the Tuskegee University Aerospace Advisory Board and is a visiting professor at Syracuse’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Dr. Sirangelo has over a two-decade industry executive career, having led teams that have successfully managed billions of dollars of space programs for more than 300 US-based space missions. In addition to academia, he provides industry advisory and board services through his company QuanStar Advisors, LLC. 

In the space industry, he was the founding executive and head of Sierra Nevada Space Systems for over ten years until 2018. Previously, Dr. Sirangelo was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SpaceDev, a publicly traded commercial space company that he grew from an early stage until its merger with Sierra Nevada Corporation. SpaceDev and SNC had many space firsts, including being on the inaugural winning X-Prize team and the design, build, launch, and operation of the first small satellites. He was a founding member and past Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which currently represents more than eighty-five space organizations. He has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and served on the executive board of the Aerospace Industries Association. 

Dr. Sirangelo served for three years as the Chief Innovation Officer of the State of Colorado, a cabinet-level position. He is the most recent past Chairman of the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Board, which provides advice to the office of the Secretary of Defense, and the founding and past Chair of the DoD’s Space Advisory Committee. Previously, he completed an assignment as Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator helping to develop NASA’s return to the Moon. 

Dr. Sirangelo and his organizations have been recognized with numerous corporate and personal awards. These include being inducted into the Space Foundation’s and NASA’s Technology Hall of Fame, the World’s Top 10 Innovative Space Companies by Fast Company, being named Manufacturer Builder of the Year by ColoradoBiz magazine, Best Place to Work by the Denver Business Journal, Inc. Magazine’s top 200 companies, Defense Industry’s Fast Track 50, Deloitte’s Fast Track 500, and selected as a finalist in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. 

One of the ways Dr. Sirangelo gives back to the space industry is as founder and Chairman of eSpace, a nonprofit that supports the startup and growth of space technology companies. As a personal passion, he has worked for over two decades to make the world a safer place for children as a founding Board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which resolved over 100,000 missing children’s cases to date. 

Dr. Sirangelo has a multifaceted personal background including being a long-term licensed pilot and a successful creative artist. He holds Bachelor of Science, Master in Business Administration, and Doctorate degrees and has served his country proudly as a US Army officer.