Pascale Ehrenfreund Appointed DLR Executive Board’s new Chair

Pascale Ehrenfreund, new chair of the DLR executive board. Photo: DLR

[Via Satellite 06-19-2015] The Senate of the German aerospace center, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), has unanimously decided to appoint Pascale Ehrenfreund, research professor of space policy and international affairs at the Space Policy Institute in Washington D.C., as the new chair of its executive board. Ehrenfreund will succeed Johann-Dietrich Wörner, who has chaired the DLR executive board for eight years, and begins a new role as director general of the European Space Agency (ESA) effective July 1.

A native of Vienna, Austria, Ehrenfreund has been professor of space policy and international affairs at the Space Policy Institute since 2008. A doctorate-level astrobiologist, she has been active in teaching and research at universities in Paris, France, Vienna, Austria, Leiden, Netherlands and Washington, D.C., U.S. as well as at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. Additionally, Ehrenfreund has been president of the Austrian Fund to promote scientific research since 2013.