Adriana Marais

Quick Facts

Intro

South African physicist

Places

South Africa

Scientist Biologist

Work field

Science

Gender

Female

Birth

1983

Place of birth

King William's Town, South Africa

Age

41 years

The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

Adriana Marais is a South African theoretical physicist and technologist. She is director of the Foundation for Space Development, South Africa, an organisation that aims to inspire children in developing countries via education and science. Marais is the founder of Proudly Human, an initiative of which is Off-World Antarctica, an off-world settlement simulation experiment to take place over the winter of 2021.

She was of four South Africans chosen in the third round of astronaut candidate selection for Mars One and was awarded the 2015 L'Oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Award.

Education and career

Marais spent her childhood in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, where she attended St. John's Diocesan School for Girls. She completed a BScHons 1@th class (theoretical physics) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2004, followed by an MSc summa cum laude (quantum cryptography) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in 2010. She was awarded a PhD (quantum biology) from UKZN in 2015 for her research on quantum effects in photosynthesis and her postdoctoral research focused on the origins of prebiotic molecules and life itself. She enrolled at UCT in 2019 as a PhD candidate in economics with a focus on economics in resource constrained environments.

In 2005, she spent time as an English teacher in Fukuoka, Japan, followed by lecturing at UKZN from 2007 - 2013. During this time, she was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Quantum Technologies, Singapore, from 2011 - 2012.

From 2017-2019, she was Head of Innovation at SAP South Africa and in 2018 she joined the faculty of Singularity University. In 2019, Marais founded Proudly Human, an organisation focusing on research and technology for a sustainable future on Earth and beyond.

She is a member of the South African government advisory task team on the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), the combination of hardware, software, and biology with a focus on communication and connectivity. In 2018, she was the keynote speaker at the South African Technology Network's international conference held in Durban, South Africa, which was focused on the 4IR and where she discussed the ways in which technologies developed for a human settlement on Mars could be applied to help Earth deal with population growth and urbanisation.

Mars One

In 2013, Marais volunteered for the Mars One Project, a private organisation, planning one-way trips to establish the first human settlement on Mars in 2026. Marais was shortlisted as one of 100 astronaut candidates with the project. In January 2019, however, Mars One declared bankruptcy.

Foundation for Space Development

Marais was a special project coordinator of the Foundation for Space Development in 2016, and in 2017, became co-director with Carla Sharpe and Khutšo Ngoasheng. The organisation aims to inspire children in developing nations via education and science; encourages technological research in areas including space research, AI and robotics and open source communication technologies. Other areas of interest include Africa2Moon, a project aiming to send Africa's first mission to the Moon; Asteroid mining; disaster management projects based on a geo-magnetic solar climate model; and other uses for big data in space.

Proudly Human

The aim of the Proudly Human team is to demonstrate successful community living in harsh environments on Earth as a step towards settlement of other planets. The first phase of the initiative is an off-world settlement simulation experiment called the Antarctic Research Community (ARC), scheduled for 2021. The phase will last almost a year and comprise the building of a functional and sustainable off-grid technology infrastructure (including life support and communications) that will be independent of current infrastructure.

The technology used by ARC and subsequent experiments will be prepared in the Off-World Tech Hub in Cape Town. The hub also promotes companies developing sustainable technology and facilitates skills development.