Marcus Märtens is a young researcher, working at the intersection of optimization, space and artificial intelligence. He received his PhD from Delft University for his work on information propagation in complex networks. His passion for multi-disciplinary research led him to published works together with experts from diverse fields including Neuroscience, Cybersecurity and Gaming. Currently, Marcus works as an internal research fellow on Artificial Intelligence in the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency. He regularly participates at the Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC), of which he was part of the winning team in 2015. This contributions were rewarded further with a HUMIES Gold award for human competitive results.