Steve Hillenius is a UX Manager and Designer in the Human Systems Integration Division at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. He takes passion in understanding the complex world of space flight and distilling it down into minimalist usable interfaces. At NASA, Steve leads a team that has designed and built software for astronauts, scientists, and engineers to control the International Space Station, Mars Rover Curiosity, LADEE (a cool little lunar orbiter that studied the Moon’s exosphere), and NEEMO (an analog mission where astronauts live in an undersea research station to simulate space flight).

These days his work involves designing and building software for astronauts to plan and run their own missions in deep space where connectivity back to Earth is limited and researching ways to build usable technology to make training and space operations more efficient. When he’s not thinking about space flight he has a passion for film photography, car design, and wearable computers. Steve holds a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction and a B.S. in Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. He has previously spoken at CanUX and SXSW about his user experience work at NASA.