[jk4930]

From your website I assume you're in the US. You could contact the Mars Society. They run analog research missions. Not with spacecraft, but with habitats, rovers, equipment (operated by "astronauts"). You could design and test UIs in the near term and get useful feedback. Plus it's usually a lot less bureaucratic than an official agency or company to have a first look. It's a good entry point. If you see that this works for you, you should use their space industry/agency network to get into further stuff perhaps.

We (oewf.org) have analog missions, too. With rovers, equipment, on-site (analog Mars) control stations. And we have a Mission Control Center, what about better UIs for the ground station? (But I think you should be in Europe for that, working remote is certainly difficult in such a case.)

Another possible partner: Look at the Google Lunar X Prize teams. Some (of the advanced ones) could be interested in UIs for their Mission Control.