Speaker Biography

Dr. Greg Autry

Clinical Professor and Director

Thunderbird Initiative for Space Leadership, Policy, and Business

Greg Autry is a Clinical Professor and Director of the Thunderbird Initiative for Space Leadership, Policy, and Business in the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and an Affiliate Professor with the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. Professor Autry holds a BA in History from California Polytechnic University at Pomona and an MBA and PhD from the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine.

Prior to joining the Thunderbird faculty, he taught entrepreneurship with the Lloyd Greif Center at the University of Southern California from 2013 to 2020. He taught entrepreneurship, strategy, and macroeconomics at the University of California, Irvine, between 2002 and 2014. Autry has also taught space entrepreneurship at the Kennedy Space Center as part of a graduate certificate program in commercial space from International Space University and the Florida Institute of Technology (2019-2021).

Autry’s research focuses on the governmental role in the emergence of new industries, and he has researched within the commercial space industry since 2003. His extensive experience in space policy includes serving on the 2016 NASA agency review team. Autry served as NASA White House Liaison in 2017, and in 2020 the President nominated him to serve as the space agency’s Chief Financial Officer. He also served as Chair of the Safety Working Group in the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) at FAA. Autry has been a notable advocate for space exploration and development. Currently, he serves as Vice President of the National Space Society a non-profit organization dedicated to extending humanity’s presence into our solar system.

Before entering higher education, Autry had a career as a serial entrepreneur, founding several technology startups. These ventures included a video game developer, computer services firm, and an enterprise software development company in the clinical healthcare space.