Meganne Christian

Dr Meganne Christian studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Engineering in industrial chemistry. In 2014, she received her PhD for a thesis entitled, “Core-shell borohydrides for reversible hydrogen storage” in which she investigated the design, synthesis and advanced characterisation of nanomaterials for hydrogen storage applications. She received several national and international awards for outstanding research in the field of engineering and industrial chemistry.  

Between 2014 and 2023, Meganne worked as a researcher at the National Research Council in Bologna, Italy, as part of the European Union scientific research initiative, the Graphene Flagship. During this time, she took part in two parabolic flight campaigns to test graphene coatings for thermal management in satellites.
 
From 2018 to 2019, Meganne served as a winter-over scientist at Concordia station in Antarctica. As scientist in charge of atmospheric physics and meteorology at the French-Italian research base, she was responsible for various observatories, including radiation, meteorology, stratospheric lidars, chemical and physical atmospheric aerosols and infrared radiation for Antarctic clouds. She returned to Concordia Station for the summer season of 2020-21. 
 
In November 2022, Meganne was selected from a pool of over 22,500 applicants across Europe to be a member of the European Space Agency’s astronaut reserve, one of only 17 selected to join the first astronaut class in 13 years. Since 2023, she has been working as Reserve Astronaut / Senior Exploration Manager (Commercial) at the UK Space Agency, advising on the future of human and robotic spaceflight. She completed her Astronaut Reserve Training in May 2026.
 
Meganne is a barbershop singer, loves adventure sports like scuba diving and via ferrata, and is rarely seen of an evening without a set of knitting needles or a crochet hook in her hands.