Dr. Iya Whiteley is a training developer for Astronauts with a background in Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Engineering. She leverages her skills and expertise, combined with her own insights and experiences as a pilot, skydiver, and scuba diver, to design both equipment and training programmes to improve the performance of highly trained professionals in extreme environments, including military pilots and astronauts. Iya has also worked at the European Astronaut Centre (European Space Agency) in Cologne, Germany and now collaborates with NASA and the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia. 

Since having her own children, Iya has been using her unique skillset to work on laying the groundwork for a universal “Earth language”. To this end, she has designed high contrast black and white visual books for newborns to tap into their full developmental potential and give them the best possible start on our unique planet Earth.