Sheyene Gerardi

**Sheyene Gerardi** (born April 13) is a Venezuelan former actress and producer. Outside the entertainment industry, her career also encompasses roles as a mining executive and the Lead of Robotics Outreach at NASA, where she founded the NASA´s Planetary Landing Team in 2018. She was granted the status of an individual with exceptional ability in the national interest in the United States and has won the numerous awards for her work and charitable efforts.

Her projects has involved collaborative efforts with U.S. federal agencies, including the Department of Defense through NASA, the Navy and the U.S. Air Force, on national security projects.  Her work on tactical weapon systems at Redstone Arsenal was a pivotal moment, leading her to refocus her efforts on developing deterrence strategies aimed at making nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

### Entertainment

Sheyene is known for her work in more than 30 countries, including Russia, Germany, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. Given her influence on the culture, a non-profit charity foundation in Barlovento, Venezuela — the Sheyene School — is named after her. Gerardi has won the Emmy Award, the 2 de Oro award, She has received the key of the city in Barlovento, the Meridiano award and the Imagen Awards. The actress has also credits in roles as a TV host. In 2016, Gerardi was named a Mogul Influencer in New York City.

### Later Career

Later in her career, Sheyene founded the Sheyene Gerardi Network (SGN), a entertainment ecosystem for social change, dedicated to foster awareness related to the space revolution. On March 9, 2020, Sheyene began hosting a TV Show documentary entitled To the Moon and Back with Sheyene Gerardi,  distributed through cable television. She also served as executive producer for this series.

## Business Career

**NASA**

In 2018, Sheyene was appointed as the Lead for Robotics Outreach at NASA, later the same year she co-founded the NASA's Planetary Landing Team. She earned a Master in Space resource utilization and subsequently was granted the status of an individual with exceptional ability in the national interest. The Planetary Landing Team Laboratory founded by Sheyene is a part of the Center for Lunar & Asteroid Surface Science (CLASS) at University of Central Florida (UCF).

Sheyene is a member of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and the committee on professional ethics, rights, and freedoms.

Sheyene Gerardi, started working with NASA Kennedy Space Center and the Florida Space Institute (FSI) to teach Planetary engineering and creating  Robotics competitions for low-income children through Sheyene School in 2017. Her role infusing scientific progress into robotics outreach included to develop a series of robotics competitions for universities and to develop robotics for constructing landing pads on the Moon. In addition to her work with NASA, she also worked with governments, with governments introducing robotics education into low-resource communities through her foundation.The program served prison systems providing assistance with education to people who has been wrongfully convicted.

### Sheyene Technology

Another one of her businesses include a robotics product line for commercial use and various projects and activities within NASA, including the International Space Station, robotic missions and international Space launch.

Sheyene's company builds its own robots for mining operations. The firm has sold its portfolio of products and services to various organizations, including government agencies in the USA; it also has product research and development operations jointly in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) and for deployment on in situ planetary and lunar missions.

### Sheyene Institute

After becoming involved with NASA Sheyene founded the Sheyene Institute, a company that works on technologies to mining resources on the Moon, Mars and asteroids, to support NASA missions.

## Philanthropy

Sheyene founded the Sheyene Gerardi Foundation in 2007, originally in Venezuela but re-organized in New York.   The foundation is dedicated to harnessing the potential of emerging technologies like AI and space exploration to address global challenges. Through research, education, and outreach initiatives, SGF fosters ethical and equitable solutions in areas such as economic development, environmental sustainability, and social justice.

As of Jan 2024, the foundation is organized into four program areas under president Sheyene Gerardi, who sets strategic priorities, monitors results, and facilitates relationships with key partners.

- Research and Development Division
- Social Impact and Governance Division
- Outreach & Education Division
- Mission Operations Manager Division

In addition to her management positions at the organization, Ms. Gerardi herself led lobbying and public relation efforts for the organization.

### Program areas and initiatives

**Education**

The Sheyene School, established in 2007, its role is to increase people's understanding of technology. The school has partnered with NASA to bring robotics competitions to South America, reaching communities across South America, the Middle East, and Europe. Additionally, SGF provides educational support in reentry programs for wrongfully convicted individuals.

**Food program**

Launched in 2021, SGF's food program delivers emergency food assistance to vulnerable communities facing pandemic, environmental, or humanitarian crises.

**CEO Program**

The SGF Commonwealth Enrichment and Outreach (CEO) Program, established in 2022, fosters financial security through entrepreneurial support initiatives.

**Telemedicine**

Sheyene e-health. Sheyene e-health is a system to spread information about rare diseases. It was created after she became a survivor of an unclassifiable splenic small B-Cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare cancer.

## Personal life

Sheyene`s family has owned and operated a mining company, since 1954. Gerardi acquired her wealth after her mother and father were killed in an automobile accident, leaving Sheyene with no living relatives. Sheyene has a passion for racing, her father, Edgar García, was a renowned explorer and a race-car driver in Venezuela; he had five consecutive wins before he died. In 1974, García led an expedition to Mount Roraima, resulting in the discovery of 11 new scorpion species, one of them: Neochactas garciai, was named in his honor for his contribution to the understanding of scorpion species.

She serves as a CEO of GEMS corporation, and took over the company after her parents died. GEMS is acronym that stands for Gerardi, Edgar (her father), Marina (her mother), Sheyene. The family office, which opened in 2009, serves as the private investment vehicle for Sheyene; one of her first major actions following the death of her parents was to implement automated mining.

Sheyene’s lands are in the Orinoco Mining Arc, in the same area of the Cristinas and the Brisas mine, which, according to a business valuation, the property may be worth more than $1 billion. According to the minister of the Popular Power for Ecological Mining Development, the Orinoco Mining Arc has tons of reserves of gold, copper, diamond, coltan, iron, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, thorium and other minerals and it has a potential of about 2 trillion dollars, which would make it the second biggest gold reserve in the world.

On April 2020, Sheyene enrolled in the University of Naples Federico II to acquire a degree in Political science. Gerardi is member of the American Society of International Law and  the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Sheyene has been a featured speaker at several international business and technology forums, including the World Economic Forum, the World Government Summit and the Nobel Prize Summit.

## Significant events

In 2006, her mother and father were killed in an automobile accident, leaving Sheyene with no living relatives. A year later, she received a diagnosis of advanced lymphoma stage IV, a very rare type of cancer with only 60 cases reported worldwide with no survivors. The cancer was spread throughout 85% of her body and doctors gave her three months to live. Sheyene underwent three years of chemotherapy treatments in Florida, she suffered no hair loss. During her chemotherapy treatments, Gerardi worked in two films in Mexico.

## Other websites

- CNN interview
- CNN interview
- La Invasora(2003)

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Sheyene Gerardi
- **image**: Sheyene Gerardi.jpg
- **caption**: Sheyene Gerardi during an event at the White House. February 2024
- **birth name**: Sheyene Gerardi
- **birth place**: Caracas, Venezuela
- **nationality**: Venezuelan and Italian
- **occupation**: Former actress, producer, business person
- **years active**: 1998–present
- **employer**: NASA Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science (CLASS)
- **organization**: Sheyene Gerardi Foundation
- **known for**: Robotics Outreach Lead (2018-Present), founder NASA´s Planetary Landing Team.
- **net worth**: $1.2 billion
- **boards**: International Political Science Association, American Society of International Law
- **partner**: Single
- **children**: None
- **family**: Both parents killed in a car Accident. No living relatives
- **awards**: Emmy, Imagen Awards
- **honours**: U.S. individual with exceptional ability in the national interest
- **website**: [http://www.sheyenegerardi.net/ sheyenegerardi.net]