Donya Naz Divsalar

B.Sc. (Hon) – (Health Sciences), Simon Fraser University M.Sc. candidate (Aerospace physiology), Simon Fraser University

Donya obtained her B.Sc. Honours in health sciences from Simon Fraser University (SFU) and is currently an M.Sc. student at the Aerospace Physiology Laboratory at SFU. Prior to immigrating to Canada in 2014, Donya attended Debrecen Medical School in Hungary. For her undergraduate honours thesis, Donya designed and executed one of the very first space health initiatives done at the student level: examining the effects of cosmic radiation on reversal of HIV latency using a fully customized and student-made CubeSat payload. She is the founder of SFU Aerospace, the second student-run aerospace organization in Canada, and also a winner of the Surrey Board of Trade’s Top 25 Under 25 for the year of 2019. Besides working on her thesis, Donya spends her time as the science lead and payload developer of the SFU Satellite Design team to bring science and CubeSat technology together by designing unique biological and biomedical payloads. Through her graduate studies, Donya is focusing on the effects of microgravity on physiological responses in the human body. She is studying bedrest as an analogue for space to assess physiological deconditioning in astronauts, and centrifugation as a countermeasure for reversing the adverse effects of spaceflight on the human body. She is also working with engineering students at SFU on developing biotechnological and biomedical advancements that aim to mitigate the negative physiological effects of long-term space travel.

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