Our Story
Ad Astra Human Science was born from a conviction that the most critical variable in any aerospace mission is the one most often underestimated: the human being. Founded by a clinical neuropsychologist and aerospace medicine specialist with more than two decades at the frontier of human performance research, Ad Astra brings together what traditional institutions rarely unite — the rigor of neuroscience, the depth of clinical psychology, the precision of engineering, and the interpretive power of the humanities. We believe that understanding how the human mind and body respond to extreme environments is not merely anacademic pursuit. It is a matter of life and survival.
Our mission
We are driven by the belief that advancing human knowledge in aerospace must always serve human flourishing. Our mission is to generate rigorous, integrated research that keeps people safer,performs better, and understands more deeply what it means to live and work beyond the ordinary boundaries of Earth.
Our Founder — Dr. Mariateresa Sestito
With over 20 years at the intersection of neuroscience, clinical psychology, and aerospace medicine, Dr. Sestito's career has been shaped by a single core belief: understanding the human mind and body is the key to keeping people safe in the most demanding environments on Earth — and beyond.
Her journey began in psychiatry and clinical neuropsychology in the early 2000s, assessing and treating patients with acquired brain injuries, degenerative diseases, and neuropsychiatric conditions. That grounding in human vulnerability and resilience became the foundation for everything that followed. Over time, her work expanded into high-performance aerospace environments — designing psychophysiological experiments, applying a neuro-ergonomic lens to cockpit design and human performance research, and contributing to international science and technology organizations in the field of human factors and aerospace medicine.
Those 15+ years of accumulated expertise converged into Ad Astra Human Science — a firm that translates deep scientific knowledge into real-world solutions for aviation and space exploration.
When not working, a passion for aviation takes her aloft aboard a 1940’s taildragger — perhaps the best reminder of why this work matters.
"The grown-ups advised me to put away my drawings (…), and apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why I abandoned, at the age of six, a magnificent career as an artist. (…). Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again. So then I had to choose another career, and I learned to pilot airplanes." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Our values
What we do
Ad Astra specializes in the human side of aerospace — the complex physiological, psychological, and cognitive dimensions that determine whether people can survive, perform, and thrive in the most demanding environments ever conceived. Our work spans fundamental research and applied consulting, often simultaneously. We design experiments,develop frameworks, advise on system design, and build the kind of cross-sector knowledge networks that produce lasting change.
Our Core Capabilities
- Trans-Disciplinary R&D – We integrate multiple scientific domains — neuroscience, clinical psychology, psychophysiology, human factors engineering, and the humanities — to generate research that no single discipline could produce alone. Our approach is rooted in a phenomenology-inspired methodology that honors the full complexity of the lived human experience.
- Human Factors & Aerospace Medicine – From cockpit ergonomics to the physiological effects of microgravity, we provide subject matter expertise that advances safety, performance, and survivability in aviation and space environments. We analyze human performance, optimize operator interfaces, and develop evidence-based protocols for extreme-environment operations.
- Applied Psychophysiology – We design and execute psychophysiological experiments that measure how the human nervous system responds to the unique stressors of aerospace environments — cognitive load,spatial disorientation, fatigue, isolation, and more.
- Clinical Neuropsychology – Our clinical foundation informs everything we do. We apply deep knowledge of brain function, acquired brain injury, and neuropsychiatric spectrum conditions to assess and protect the cognitive health of operators in high-stakes settings.
- Human Performance Optimization – We develop and evaluate interventions that enhance cognitive and physical performance in extreme environments — drawing on behavioral science, neuroscience, and engineering to design systems and protocols that bring out the best in human capability.
- International Cross-Sector Partnership Development – We actively build resilient networks across government, industry, and academia — connecting the right experts across borders to accelerate discovery and turn research into strategy, design, and practice.
Our MethodologyAt Ad Astra, methodology is not a formality. It is a commitment. We advocate for a multidisciplinary, phenomenology-inspired research approach — one that acknowledges the irreducible complexity of human experience and refuses reductive explanations. Our work is rigorous in its empirical foundation and expansive in its interpretive ambition. We operate across institutions and borders, bringing together diverse expertise under a shared commitment to advancing what is possible for human exploration.
