Alissa J. Haddaji was a Visiting Fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School STS program during the 2017-2018 academic year. She is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France) ,a PhD Candidate in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology at Arizona State University (USA) and LLM candidate in Air and Space Law at Leiden Law School (Netherlands). A Masters graduate in History/International Relations, Political Science, STS, and Earth Science from La Sorbonne, Brown and Bordeaux University, Alissa joined the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in 2012. She holds the position of Planetary Protection Project Officer. Her research investigates decision making processes of International Space Risk Management (Planetary Protection, Planetary Defense and Space Debris Reentry) using ethnography, with a focus on the relations between Space Science and Space Law. 

In parallel to her research, Alissa is the coordinator of the International Planetary Protection Handbook and training seminars in Japan, China and the United States. Team facilitator for the United Nations-mandated Space Mission Program Advisory Group Ad-hoc Legal working group on Planetary Defense, Alissa acts also as legal and policy consultant for Loft Orbital, a San Francisco-based LEO satellite servicing company.

Prior to her PhDs, Alissa worked for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Defense in Paris, as a Research Assistant at CNES and NASA, and most recently, as a Visiting Scholar at the George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute in Washington DC.