Thesis Defense by Brittany Zimmerman on April 30th

You are invited to attend the thesis defense for Space Studies M.S. candidate Brittany Zimmerman scheduled for Friday, April 30th at noon

Central DST.  See Zoom details below.

Research Title: “Closing the Loop in Life Support Systems for Spaceflight and Habitation: Reutilization of Human Excrement through Recovery of Potable Water and Reclamation of Waste Materials for In-space Additive Manufacturing”

Research Description: Human defecations in space are currently thrown out as trash; however human feces is made up of approximately 75% water by mass. Join Ms. Zimmerman as she walks us through technology that she invented and tested for reusing human excrement.  How you ask?  First, by pulling  the water out of the feces and returning it to the crew as potable (drinkable) water.  Second, by using the dehydrated waste material (the stuff that’s left over) as a filler for additive manufacturing processes in space.  Come to this thesis defense to hear how she took human excrement and is helping to close the life support loop by recovering the water and turning the rest into building materials!

Bio: Brittany Zimmerman is the CEO and Chief of Innovation at Yummet. Before Yummet, she served as Principal Investigator and Aerospace Engineer at Paragon Space Development. Brittany has spent 30 years working on expanding her breadth of skills to build a synergy of competencies to achieve her lifetime goal: organizational success through bettering the conditions of humanity.  She takes the old philosophy of leaving the world a better place than you found it to the next level. In her most recent of many ventures, Brittany is implementing her multidisciplinary expertise of space systems to simplify complexities and make life support technologies easily accessible and affordable for terrestrial humanity. For this and other projects, she is seeking partners and investors.

To continually diversify her activities and skills, she has opened a new location to a 501(c)(3) where she acts as Board Member and Director of Operations for a nonprofit which ensures safety and education to cross-cultural youth in California and Arizona. Brittany is a member of the 20 Under 35 cohort of 2020 and received a Promise Award in that same year, signifying her place as one of 3 leaders of the 2020 cohort. Read More About Brittany Here

Committee: Dr. Pablo de León (Chair), Dr. Mike Gaffey and Dr. Tim Young

Zoom Meeting URL:  https://und.zoom.us/j/99996191072?pwd=U1p6blMwS3A5TFVUUDB6OUxVWlpZUT09