Dr. Chaitanya Giri is a Consultant for Space Policy & Space Diplomacy at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi, India, and an Affiliate Scientist at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. Chaitanya was earlier the Fellow for Space and Ocean Studies at Gateway House, Mumbai and prior to that worked as planetary scientist for a decade. He has been a visiting scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, US, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, US, and Synchrotron SOLEIL, France. He has a doctorate in Chemistry with a specialisation in analytical astrochemistry from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany and the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France. Chaitanya was a scientific crew member of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and a co-investigator of the Cometary Sampling and Composition Experiment (COSAC) payload on Rosetta's Philae Lander. He is a recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the 2014 Dieter Rampacher Prize of the Max Planck Society, Germany and the 2016-2018 ELSI Origins Network Fellowship by the John Templeton Foundation, USA. He has consulted the National Security Council Secretariat at the Prime Minister's Office and was a nominated member of the International Cooperation Review of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. He speaks regularly on public forums and teaches at various domestic and international academic institutions. He is the author of the book "India in the Second Space Age of Interplanetary Connectivity" (Routledge, 2021), and has written several book chapters, policy reports and white papers, and articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.

Specialisation/Research Area

• Space Exploration Science
• Space R&D Industry and Techno-Geostrategy
• Comparative Astropolitics and Space Diplomacy
• Space Economy and Industry 4.0

Email : chaitanya.giri@ris.org.in