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Esther DYSON

Spaceflight Participant, USA

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
Born July 14, 1951, in Zurich, Switzerland.

EDUCATION:
Graduated from Harvard University specializing in economics in 1974.

HOBBY:
Has a complete command of English, French, Russian and German.

WORK EXPERIENCE:
From 1974 she worked as an editor, reporter in Forbes magazine. From 1977 Esther Dyson was an analyst in the research department of investment brokerage company New Court Securities focused on high technological sectors of economy. Later she became the information market analyst in a number of research companies and then bought out the Rosen Research Company from her employer and renamed it to EDventure Holdings.
From mid 1980 to 2006 she edited magazine Release 1.0. In 1997 Esther Dyson published her book Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age.
From 1998 to 2000 she was a chairman of the ICANN Corporation (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a public organization which under the contract with the U.S. government is engaged in coordination of policy and technical protocols related to domain names.
Over decades she took an active part in venture financing of startup companies involved in long-term research and developments in the field of rendering on-line services, public health, genetics and spaceflights.
Dyson visited Russia many times and facilitated development of the native information market. Her articles and interview are often published in the Russian magazines devoted to economy, a market of high technologies and intellectual property.
Specializes in investments in digital technologies developed for mass media.
On October 7, 2008 she was selected as a backup of spaceflight participant - space tourist Charles Simonyi.
In October 2008 by the joint decision of medical-and-labor examination commission of IBMP and Yu.A. Gagarin CTC she was allowed for special training.
On December 19, 2008 by decision of the Chief Medical Board with participation of IBMP and Yu.A. Gagarin CTC specialists she was allowed for crew training (preflight training). From November 5, 2008 she began preflight training.
In January 2009 she began to train within the Soyuz TMA-14 backup crew, together with Maxim Suraev and Jeffrey Williams.

March 2009
Based on data of sites astronaut.ru. and WikiPedia.ru