Bérengère Houdou got her Engineering degree in Supelec in France, complemented by a Master at MIT in the US. Passionate about space since her childhood, she is working at the European Space Agency at ESTEC (Noordwijk) for about 20 years. She worked first on recycling technologies for human space flight. She then got the bug for lunar exploration. She is now leading a team developing science instruments and systems for the lunar explorers of the 21st century , involving multiple stakeholders in Europe and beyond.
Regarding the increased complexity of the projects she manages, she encourages actively open exchanges about it in various circles. This allows to avoid the « feel alone syndrome », to understand the types of complexity each partner is facing, to share tips on how to deal with it, and at the end to be more efficient and … happier.
When it is not possible to grasp analytically the entire complexity of a situation, she has also learned to trust carefully her intuition.