Eight officers, a board of eight, and no photographs
Six of the Foundation’s eight officers held a grant from it before they worked for it, and two held one before it existed. The Foundation considers that the correct proportion and hires accordingly.
E. Starlight
FOUNDER AND CHAIR OF THE BOARD · SINCE 2000
Filed the Foundation on 14 March 2000 and endowed it. Chairs the board, attends by telephone, and does not sit for photographs or give interviews. Declines all honorary appointments. The Foundation is asked about her often and has nothing further to add.
She takes no salary and no expenses, holds one vote of eight, and has no reserved power in the articles beyond the chair. She has declined every honorary degree, medal, naming right and interview offered to her, in writing, by return of post.
The Foundation is asked about its founder more often than about its programmes and regards this as a failure of its own communications rather than of anybody’s curiosity.
The people who sign things
Officers are appointed by the board and serve at its pleasure. None of them holds compensation tied to a launch, a window, a milestone or a result — a standing refusal since the filing.
Dr Priya Ramanathan
PresidentWrote the sparse solvers that made the MERIDIAN model finish inside a funding year, on a grant awarded before the Foundation existed. Joined the staff in 2003 and has run the grant process since. Reads every closing report, which she says is the only part of the job that cannot be delegated.
Grantee 1990 · staff 2003 · president since 2016Tiago Mendes-Ruiz
Chief EngineerCame from pressure-vessel work and holds the LONGBOAT configuration. Keeps a standing rule that no drawing leaves the Aldern Works without a named checker and a dated revision, and has enforced it against his own drawings twice.
Staff since 2019Dr Amara Dube
Director of ProgrammesRan GRAVEL and then PLUMBLINE to its close, and is the author of the sentence in the 2021 report that reads: the survey is finished, and a finished survey should be closed rather than extended.
Grantee 2009 · staff 2013Dr Sofia Errazuriz
Director of ResearchHeld the Foundation’s first grant — a spectrometer bench, 2.4 million credits, 2000 — and built the flight head that followed it. Chairs the award panel and abstains on anything touching her own institution.
Grantee 2000 · staff 2011Naomi Vance
Director of Archive and PublicationCatalogued the prior record in 2001, which took eleven months and remains the document most often requested from the archive. Administers the publication covenant, including the part of it that publishes failures.
Staff since 2001Conrad Ashby
Chief Financial OfficerRuns an endowment against a nine-window horizon and publishes the audited accounts in full each year, including the years in which the Foundation underspent. Has never permitted a programme to be funded from a subsequent year’s income.
Staff since 2008Miriam Oyelaran
General Counsel and SecretaryDrafts the grant instruments, which are short, and the export and publication clauses, which are not. Responsible for the standing refusal of naming rights, exclusivity and retained intellectual property.
Staff since 2012Eight seats, six of them held by former grantees
Two seats are reserved: one for endowment and audit, one for research ethics and publication policy. The remaining six are held by people who have built something the Foundation paid for.
Minutes are published in redacted form within sixty days. Redactions are limited to personnel matters and third-party commercial terms, are counted, and the count is published with the annual accounts. In 2026 there were four.
Thirty-one staff, and a drawing office that still checks by hand
The Foundation employs thirty-one people: eleven in the drawing office at the Aldern Works, six at the Cold Lab, four in the archive, and the rest in grants, accounts and governance. Flight hardware is built under contract, competed each programme.
No drawing leaves the Works without a named checker and a dated revision. The Chief Engineer has had two of his own drawings returned under that rule and considers it the most useful thing about it.
Vacancies are posted at the Works and in the archive. Applications arrive on paper, addressed to the secretary, and are read in the order they arrive.
Conflicts and abstentions
In a field this small, panel members are routinely conflicted. Rather than pretend otherwise, the Foundation requires abstention on anything touching a member’s own institution and publishes the abstention register alongside each round’s awards.
In the 2026 rounds, nineteen abstentions were recorded across five panel members. The Director of Research abstained twice.