Space exploration has driven innovation for decades and inspired local scientist Dr. Solange Massa to literally reach for the stars. Massa is the founder and chief executive officer of Ecoatoms, Inc., a company aiming to make manufacturing in space a possibility.

"Space is the final frontier and microgravity is our greatest opportunity to test new materials and run experiments no Earth lab can replicate," Massa said.

Massa will present her work in the first dual-language lecture of the Discover Science Lecture Series, presented by the College of Science on April 30. In her lecture, “Factories in the Sky: Building the Space Economy,” Massa, a native Spanish speaker, will talk about how the payloads she’s developed here in Reno made it to space. The lecture will start in Spanish, with live English translation available, before switching to English, with live Spanish translation available.

“This is the first time we’ve offered a bilingual presentation, and we’re excited to reach the science-curious Spanish-speaking audience in our community,” College of Science Dean Louisa Hope-Weeks said.

Massa started Ecoatoms to develop space payloads that can perform autonomous experiments in space. Ecoatoms has successfully completed multiple suborbital and orbital missions, in partnership with NASA and flying with SpaceX and Blue Origin. Ecoatoms leverages microgravity to develop manufacturing and experimentation processes that run autonomously during spaceflight. The company won NASA’s TechLeap Prize and was recently selected as an Implementation Partner for the International Space Station National Laboratory.

Registration for Massa’s Discover Science lecture is free and open to the public, with registration available on Eventbrite. More information, including parking information, is available at the registration link.