Fondatrice et PDG de ThrustMe, start-up française qui développe un système de propulsion spatiale nouvelle génération.
Ane Aanesland is a recognized expert in plasma physics and electric propulsion. She is the author of 60+ refereed journal papers, inventor of 4 patents, and has over 100 conferences contributions including 25 invited talks at prestigious international conferences.
Ane started her career at the northernmost university in the world, The Arctic University of Norway, where she obtained a PhD in Plasma Physics. She then worked as a researcher at the Australian National University in Australia for three years, before she came to France in 2006. She entered the CNRS in 2008 and was responsible for research on innovative electric propulsion at the Ecole Polytechnique. She later headed a 30-people research group in the Laboratory of Plasma physics, and was nominated director of research at the CNRS in 2017.
She is now on leave from the CNRS and together with her colleague Dmytro Rafalskyi, she funded the startup ThrustMe in February of 2017, where she is the president and CEO. ThrustMe is now 14 people and they recently raised 2.2 M€ in private equity and governmental grants.
Ane likes “impossible” challenges both in the professional and private life. She biked from Oslo to Rome in 21 days (2940 km), runs half-marathon in 1h42 minutes and explore the wild back-countries of Norway, Australia, Alaska on auto sufficiency over several weeks.