Fatoumata Kébé

Kébé was born in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis and grew up in Noisy-le-Sec. She has been interested in space since she was a child.[1] At the age of eight she discovered her father's encyclopaedia in astronomy.[2] Her favourite planet is Saturn.[3] She studied fluid mechanics for her Master's studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University.[4] She worked multiple jobs alongside her studies.[5] Kébé worked on space debris during her PhD, specialising in modelling fragmentation events to monitor the movement of debris.[1] She worked at the Pierre and Marie Curie University Paris Observatory in the Institute for Celestial Mechanics and Computation of Ephemerides.[6] She trained for a year at the University of Tokyo in space engineering, where she worked on the construction of small satellites.[7] Here she launched Connected Eco, a project that works with women in Mali to protect the environment from over farming.[7][8] She designed solar powered sensors that monitor the drought level of soil and send information by SMS to farmers.[7][9] The project won an International Telecommunication Union Young Innovators Challenge.[7] She was awarded a United Nations Alliance of Civilizations fellowship.[7] She earned her doctorate, Etude de l’influence des incréments de vitesse impulsionnels sur les trajectoires de débris spatiaux, in 2016.[10][11] She was an intern at NASA, Centre national de la recherche scientifique and International Space University.[12]

Kébé at 21st Century Fox during the 2017 Hidden No More International Visitor Leadership Program.

Kébé was featured in the Space Girls Space Women exhibition in 2015.[13] The exhibition was held at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.[14] She has delivered two TED Talks, Le ciel est un menteur and L'Astronomie, ma passion.[15][16] She was invited to the European Space Agency Women in Aerospace roundtable.[17] She was a keynote speaker at the Change Now summit in 2017.[18] She was selected by the United States Department of State for an International Visitor Leadership Program in October 2017.[19] In March 2018 she was featured in a video campaign by Glamour.[20] She was included in the Grazia feature Women scientists, figures in the shadows.[21] She was named as one Vanity Fair's Most Influential French People in the world in 2018.[22]