Matthew Isakowitz Rising Star Award

The Matthew Isakowitz Rising Star Award recognizes early career individuals with exceptional promise of furthering the commercial space industry and becoming future industry icons. Recipient(s) will have demonstrated leadership, initiative, and innovation - for example, by founding a company, enabling new markets, or driving the next wave of breakthrough technologies or novel applications. The honor will be presented at the annual ASCEND Conference hosted by AIAA, Commercial Space Federation (CSF), ISSNL, SFA, and SGAC in Washington, D.C. , and the recipient(s) will be recognized on the CSF website. The Rising Star Award is administrated through a closed nomination process.

2026 Award Recipient

Isobel Porteous

Isobel Porteous is an entrepreneur and policy thinker dedicated to two interconnected missions: launching a new space positioning capability that can serve the world's needs when GPS cannot, and developing technology and policy to secure space for the next generation of innovators. As the founding Head of Business Development at EarthTraq Corporation, Isobel brings together her engineering and policy background with a conviction that the commercial space industry can answer crucial questions facing life on Earth.

Isobel grew up in New York City and traces her love of space to the planetarium at the Museum of Natural History. She attended an all-girls school and, through her middle school robotics team, became convinced that more women belonged in engineering. During her gap year before college, she joined Spire Global in San Francisco as their launch intern. She went to Cape Canaveral for the first time to watch six Spire satellites launch on Transporter-1, the first SpaceX commercial rideshare, which set the record for the most payloads deployed in a single mission. During her gap year at Spire, she fell in love with the new space economy that makes it easier than ever to access Earth orbit.

At Stanford, she studied Aeronautics and Astronautics and co-led the development and launch of Sapling-1 and Sapling-2 (the university's first entirely student-built spacecraft). She went on to intern as a propulsion test engineer for Virgin Orbit out at Mojave Air and Space Port and as a U.S. Space Force contractor at Booz Allen Hamilton. She learned entrepreneurial leadership through the Mayfield Fellowship. Her honors thesis, a technical and policy feasibility study on orbital nuclear weapons verification and monitoring for the Outer Space Treaty, won the William J. Perry Prize. Her follow-on article was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and selected as a 2025 "Voices of Tomorrow" essay. She continues to pursue the goal of cooperative, international space arms control as the newly named Outer Space Visiting Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks, where she is designing a demonstration mission to test in-orbit verification concepts. She has written on space policy and defense acquisition reform in War on the Rocks, and her work at EarthTraq has been featured in the New York Times.

In January 2025, Isobel and her co-founders started EarthTraq to build a GPS-independent positioning system using LEO satellites–designed to track any object, anywhere on Earth, at a fraction of the cost and power of GPS or other alternatives. EarthTraq closed its seed round in March 2025 and is launching eight spacecraft this year. Her ambition is to grow EarthTraq into the positioning backbone for the 21st century, and to shape the policy environment that will determine how dual-use commercial space capabilities are developed and procured for decades to come. She wants to leave space better than she found it: more useful, more secure, and more accessible than ever.

2025 Award Recipient

Shaurya Luthra

Shaurya Luthra is a technology leader dedicated to solving one of the space industry’s most pressing challenges: Scaling ground infrastructure to manage the ever-growing volume of satellite data. As Head of Software & Cofounder at Northwood Space, Shaurya’s career is defined by a blend of fortunate choices, unwavering passion, and a deep desire to make a positive impact on the world.

Shaurya, born in India and raised in the U.S., has been shaped by a strong sense of purpose instilled by his family and community. His early achievements, including becoming an Eagle Scout and serving as a volunteer firefighter, reinforced his commitment to service. His fascination with space took flight during his time at Cornell, where he earned both a B.S. and an M.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Inspired by visionaries like Carl Sagan and the real-world impact of space technology, Shaurya set his sights on a career dedicated to driving meaningful change.

Shaurya began his career at Lockheed Martin Space, where he contributed to critical IC/DoD systems and gained invaluable insights into the vital role of space data in national security. His work on advanced ground operations laid a strong foundation for his future in space communications. Seeking to maximize his personal impact, Shaurya transitioned to Capella Space—a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing company with a mission to revolutionize the use of SAR data. At Capella, he played an instrumental role in building the company’s ground segment, advancing from individual contributor to tech lead to manager. There, he led a team of 10 engineers, overseeing numerous projects that spanned the entire spectrum of data movement from space to ground.

A pivotal moment in his career occurred when, through mentor Duncan Eddy, Shaurya met his future co-founders, Bridgit Mendler and Griffin Cleverly. United by a shared enthusiasm for overcoming the challenges of scalable, reliable, and pervasive space communications, Shaurya joined as a co-founder of Northwood Space in 2023. Northwood Space aspires to become a vertically integrated manufacturer of ground stations, providing satellite operators with seamless access to their spacecraft. As Head of Software, Shaurya oversees the development of everything from high-speed networking software to the company’s global ground orchestration platform.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Shaurya's personal interests and values deeply influence his work. He enjoys reading textbooks for fun in his free time—a testament to his lifelong curiosity and passion for learning. Honored with the Matthew Isakowitz Rising Star Award, Shaurya strives to give more than he takes, always seeking opportunities to contribute positively. His motivation is deeply personal, fueled by a desire to honor the legacy of those who have guided him—family, mentors, and friends, including one whose memory he preserves through his work. Above all, he remains dedicated to pushing the boundaries of space communications and data utilization, hoping to continue to increase the impact he makes on this world.