On any given day here at Keller, we have all types of professionals doing their work; some work for major companies, some run their own small business, and some are the entrepreneurs of the group, forging new and fascinating ways of working and making community outside of traditional definitions. Then there’s our member Cristina Star, whose work goes beyond even these categories in powerful ways. Operating her business Cosmic Citizen from Keller since 2022, her work is, in a word, integrative. Cosmic Citizen is a personal transformation program, drawing on her multidisciplinary training in yoga, Buddhism, shamanism, a degree in physics from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in space policy as well, offering a cohort-based curriculum of personal development that aims to instruct people in not just what to do in their work, but how to live more fulfilling, aware lives.
It is a unique and integrated approach to personal wellness, and it walks a deliberately scientific path through territory often rife with fluff and platitudes in order to train people in the arts of living. It takes as ground truth the reality of more traditionally esoteric spaces — the body wisdom of yoga, the spiritual seeking of Buddhist philosophy, the holistic life knowledges of Ayurveda — to root these transformational practices in something tangible and encourage trainees to find their own alignments for greater facility in the world. Bringing the rigor of the sciences to this personal development is key to the work. Cristina sums it up clearly: “Integrity is a top value of this process, and I mean integrity in the way a bridge has integrity. The bridge has to be able to hold the weight of the people trying to cross it. Cosmic Citizen is about being rooted in the world and optimizing your place in it.”
As a Keller community member, she is also a regular facilitator of craft workshops in-house. She designs them around the seasons and creative reuse and recycling of everyday things, something she attributes to having an art teacher for a mother, and wanting to offer the member community a hands-on way to experience creativity during a workday to see how that activity can enhance one’s work in other ways. Her contribution to our shared workplace is emblematic of the kind of diverse, interested, and multi-talented people we have in our membership.
Cristina also works directly in the areas related to space policy, advising bodies responsible for formulating policy for both government and commercial space programs, and in 2025 was voted Top 100 Women in Aerospace and Aviation to follow on LinkedIn for “ethical leadership in space.” The work she does in this area is deeply intertwined with that of Cosmic Citizen, and utilizes much of the conversation around what’s called the Overview Effect, a profound cognitive shift reported by astronauts after viewing the Earth from space. This apprehension of the awe of being alive, and the ability to see the macro-perspective reflected at the micro-level informs much of the philosophy she weaves into her practices and instruction. When asked to contextualize these effects in her work she puts it more poetically, saying, “It’s not enough to reach for the stars, it matters who we are when we get there.”
Visit cristinastar.com to read more and follow her on LinkedIn HERE to learn about her work. Be sure not to miss her next crafting workshop here at Keller 4/16!