Former physics and chemistry schoolteacher, author, and social entrepreneur, Jacqueline Cofield is the founder of J Rȇve International, LLC. Her enterprise targets enhanced learning through STEAM and arts integration, and cross-cultural experiential education. Jacqueline specializes in creating game-changing experiences for educators, students, artists and arts patrons. Her unique programs are designed to bridge cultural and global barriers to humanity, creativity, academic performance, and productivity. She published ‘STEAM+ Arts Integration’ and launched its corresponding conference. An international ambassador, Cofield collaborates globally with leading cultural and educational institutions, visionaries in creative arts and education, and private enterprises. She is also a trilingual multidisciplinary cultural strategist and has lived and studied in 9 countries and traveled to more than 60. Cofield graduated with multiple honors degrees in Education, Communication, and Fine Arts respectively from the City University of New York, University of Southern California, and Tisch School for the Arts at New York University.

Diane Noel has been working with the State of Connecticut Public Health Laboratory (CTDPHL) for over fifteen years and currently serves as Supervisor of the Enterics and Bioterrorism Response departments. During her tenure, her and her team has processed and tested thousands of samples implicated in criminal cases of bioterrorism threats, including the Amerithrax attack in the fall of 2001. She continues her role in educating clinical laboratorians on improving their capacity in identifying potential dangerous pathogens while they are on the bench, as well as increasing outreach to First Responders and other key players (i.e. state and federal agencies) to demonstrate the evolving responsibilities of the Public Health Laboratory as new biological threats emerge. Prior to her work at CTDPHL, she had over twenty years working as a clinical microbiology supervisor at both the hospital and reference clinical laboratory level.

Daniel McKinney is a passionate science educator with over 16 years of classroom experience teaching a broad spectrum of subjects including Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Marine Biology, and Agriculture. He also has over a decade of experience as a professional development designer and facilitator working primarily in beginning teacher mentoring and science instructional design. He is currently employed at Santa Rosa Academy in Menifee, California where he teaches Physics, Astronomy, and Environmental Science. He also develops workshops with the California Science Project at the University of California Riverside that integrate modern physics research into contemporary physics classrooms. Doctor McKinney focuses on dynamic hands-on instruction and active engagement to make science and critical thinking real and lifelong practices for his students. It is his sincere belief that education remains the most powerful and empowering resource a person can possess and is an effective means of promoting positive social change.

Ashlie Smith instructs physical science at Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Girls located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. An early adopter of educational technology and facilitative learning, Smith counts “flipping her classroom” as one of her top achievements. For this effort, she was recognized by TechSmith Corporation as Screencast Champion and awarded the honor of “exemplary teacher” by the Cranbrook Educational Community. Smith uses space science to encourage her students to dream big and cites inspiring young girls to develop an interest in STEM and consider STEM careers as driving passions. In 2016, Smith was honored to present a TEDx talk titled “Inspiring the Astronauts of Tomorrow.” She was the recipient of the 2017 Alan Shepard Technology in Education Award presented by NASA, Astronaut Memorial Foundation, and Space Foundation. In addition to instruction, Smith chairs an innovation committee charged with furthering a relationship between Cranbrook and the MIT Edgerton Center.

Dwight Lee Bates PE is an Engineer with 44 years experience in the Aviation, Shipbuilding and Automotive fields and 200 awards. His current project is as an Engineering Fellow in the South Central Washington STEM Network. He goes to schools helping the students to do STEM Engineering projects he developed. He flies kids in a light airplane to convince them in becoming Engineers and pilots. He wrote and published his own book for the students entitled; “Due Diligence – Memoirs of the Life of An Engineer and Outdoorsman.” Lee was a Material Review Board Liaison Engineer in the Boeing factories designing, building and repairing Boeing jetliners from the 747 to the 787. He was an expert Engineer GS 13 overhauling US Navy ships for the US Department of Defense. He is a Licensed Mechanical Engineer, a Private Pilot, BSME and MBA Degrees. He built and flew his own Light Sport Aircraft.

Prior to founding V-Sense Medical Devices, Inc. in 2015, Mr. Nosanov led multiple project and proposal management activities at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laborator. He managed projects ranging from technology development to mission design, and led proposal efforts between $50,000 and $500,000,000. He has represented federal labs before NASA, DARPA and other agencies, and has represented a NASA program at the United Nations in Vienna, Austria. He has led several previous business endeavors ranging from IT services to aerospace industry consulting.

Mr. Nosanov earned a J.D. and became the first person in the United States to earn an LL.M. degree in space and telecommunications law. He has also been selected for the prestigious NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts three times, leading advanced space mission and technology design projects. His volunteer activities are highlighted by frequent visits to primary schools to talk with children about space exploration, science, and technology. Additionally, he is a frequent writer on Quora.com and top writer in the space area for the last few years with about 400,000 answer views, and published in Forbes.

Rhett Allain is currently an Associate Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University and blogger at Wired. Early in high school, he realized that he liked science and decided to study physics. During graduate school, Allain realized that he enjoyed teaching physics because only by teaching do you really start to learn physics. In 2008 he started to write blog posts analyzing fun things in physics as a way to show students how to complete small research projects. After just a couple of posts, he became addicted to blogging and has continued writing about things that don’t matter ever since. His favorite topics are estimations and the physics of science fiction. Rhett is currently the science advisor for The MythBusters as well as MacGyver and The Science of Stupid. In his spare time he enjoys taking things apart, but he usually can’t put them back together.

Jess Phoenix is Executive Director and co-founder of revolutionary environmental scientific research organization Blueprint Earth. She is a volcanologist, an extreme explorer, and a professional field scientist. She has been chased by narco-traffickers in Mexico, dodged armed thieves in remote Peru, raced horses across Mongolia, worked on the world’s largest volcano in Hawaii, piloted the Jason2 submersible on an undersea volcano, and explored deep in the Australian Outback. Jess believes science should be accessible to everyone, and that creative possibility is limitless. Jess is a Fellow in The Explorers Club, a featured scientist on the Discovery and Science Channels, an invited TEDx speaker, and she has appeared in Popular Science magazine, on National Public Radio, on CNN, NBC, and more. She has delivered talks at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, and at many colleges and universities, and has carried the official Explorers Club Flag on a research expedition.

Guy Chriqui is a Senior Research Engineer at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center. His work specializes in opto-mechanical systems design and development. Guy’s current projects include the Segmented Planar Imaging Detector for Electro-optical Reconnaissance (SPIDER), a Photonic Integrated Circuit based imaging system. Guy and the lab where his SPIDER telescope is being developed will be featured in the Generation Beyond Virtual Field Trip during World Space Week, on Tuesday, October 4th at 1pm ET. Before coming to Lockheed Martin, Guy’s career path included time at Boeing, NASA, and Moon Express. His previous projects saw him leading teams to develop Lunar Micro Rovers in an effort to make a COTS rover a reality. Guy received his Masters of Science in Astronautics from the University of Southern California and his Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Outside of work, Guy is an active mentor for students in robotics. His teams have won multiple world championships and over 50 regional titles as well as many design awards. This led to including him as a robotics advisor for Disney’s Big Hero Six.

Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen is the founder of Openwater whose goal is a wearable with MRI-plus resolution that can enable telepathy as well as drastically transform diagnostic costs for healthcare. Previously she was an engineering executive at Facebook, Oculus, Google[x] and Intel. In addition, Mary Lou has founded 4 startups including One Laptop per Child where she was CTO, chief architect and delivered to mass production the $100 laptop. Her startup CEO experience includes the world’s only fabless display screen company which was based in Taipei. She has been a professor at both MITs: RMIT in Australia and MIT in Cambridge. She is an inventor on well over 100 published or issued patents and has shipped billions of dollars worth of consumer electronics on the hairy edge of what the physics will do. She has been recognized with many awards including TIME magazine’s “Time 100” as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and as a CNN top 10 thinker.

Tara is the CEO and founder of the global non-profit Iridescent. Her mission in life has been to transform the opportunities available to young people, especially girls, to reach their full-potential and impact their communities. Tara founded Iridescent in 2006 to create and deliver powerful science, engineering, and technology education to empower underrepresented young people. Iridescent has since grown to a community of over 3,500 mentors and more than 63,000 participants throughout the world through its flagship programs Technovation and Curiosity Machine. Forbes highlighted Tara in 2016 as “the pioneer empowering the incredible tech girls of the future” and she was prominently featured in the award-winning documentary Codegirl. Tara earned her BS in Physics from St. Stephen’s College and a MS in aerospace engineering from Boston University. Tara left her PhD program in aerospace engineering at USC to pursue her social entrepreneurship to found Iridescent and directly empower girls and children everywhere.

MacCalvin is a Boston native currently earning his Masters in Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. After earning a Bachelors of Science in Management and Information Systems from Boston College, MacCalvin worked as a IT Consultant at EMC and as a Managing Business Technologist at DigistasLBI. In 2012 while at DigitasLBI, MacCalvin formed a partnership with Citizens School, a non-profit organization whose mission is to close the opportunity gap for middle schoolers in low-income communities by creating after-school programs that extend the learning day. Looking to blend his passion for technology and innovation with his passion for giving back to his community, MacCalvin recruited members of the Digitas team and launched an after-school curriculum that has brought technology and marketing-based courses to over 250 students in the Boston public school system. Outside of his studies, MacCalvin serves on the Citizen Schools Leadership Council, Massachusetts STEM council, TEDxBoston leadership team, and is the Director of the Wolverine Venture Fund at the University of Michigan.

Dawn Thompson met her husband, Punkin Chunkin cofounder Bill Thompson, in 1988, and she’s been a diehard Chunker ever since. Dawn has been there for every major Punkin Chunkin moment, from the first centrifugal machine to the first (and only) spectator to be hit by a punkin; she even co-wrote a ballad about the Chunk’s origins (performed at every championship since 1989). In her spare time, Dawn inspires future engineers by doing mini trebuchet demonstrations at local schools. When asked about her amateur engineering accomplishments, Dawn merely says, “I’m pretty good at the mechanical stuff.” ‘Pretty good’ is an understatement coming from the first woman to ever earn a Championship Punkin Chunkin title, a feat achieved with her winning air cannon Hormone Blaster on the event’s 25th Anniversary. Dawn’s desire to share her passions for mechanics, innovation, and creativity makes her a Science Super Hero to backyard engineers everywhere.

Samuel O’Dell is a Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Roane State Community College, where he is in the midst of faculty who are truly dedicated to teaching and making a difference in their students’ lives.  He tries to model his teaching after my father and the great faculty in Science Education at the University of Georgia, where he earned his PhD.  He doesn’t have to look any further than my students to find science superheroes; many of them have families, full time jobs, struggle with financial resources, or all of the above.  Yet they persevere in order to get into professions that help others, and he is proud to be amongst them. To anyone reading this, he thanks you for your interest in science and science education. You make the world a better place.

Michael Weiss is an American engineer who is known for his contributions to on-orbit satellite servicing missions, particular of the Hubble Space Telescope. Weiss most recently served as deputy program director on the Hubble Space Telescope program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,MD. Weiss received his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park in 1978 and 1983. He has led the systems engineering for missions including the systems engineering for missions including the Solar Maximum Mission, Upper Atmosphere Research Satelite, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer as well as the first shuttle based satellite repair, the Solar Maximum Repair Mission in 1984. Weiss was involved in all 5 Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. He directed systems development during servicing mission 1 and servicing mission 2. He served as deputy program director through servicing mission 4. He also led the Mishap Investigation Board investigating the failure of a balloon launch from Australia carrying a gamma-ray telescope for to the University of California at Berkeley.

Jordan Kruger is the STEM Director and Assistant Principal of ITW David Speer Academy, a new STEM high school in Chicago, IL.  He was born and raised in Chicago and is passionate about improving science education and has been for the past 11 years as a teacher and as a high school administrator. After graduating from the University of Illinois (where he also was a a part of the Fighting Illini football team), he entered Teach For America and taught science at an inner-city high school in Chicago. Since that time he has taught Physics, Biology, AP Biology, Chemistry and now as a high school administrator he works to create a curriculum focused on empowering inner-city students to succeed in STEM in college and beyond. His goal is to create over 1000 minority STEM professionals by 2026 by developing strong science curricula and STEM outreach programming.

“Every day is Earth Day!” Mark Ferraro’s students are greeted by this phrase as they enter the classroom. He studied Horticulture, Earth and Space Science, Environmental Science and learned how to be an administrator at Temple University. As a science educator for the past 19 years, Mark loves “getting his hands dirty” by incorporating real world experiences into his classes. He has helped introduce hydroponics and aquaponics to the LEED certified Lower Merion School District that has always been very supportive of sustainability initiatives. Mark has guided the district wide Green Council which searches for ways to decrease our ecological footprint. When he’s not in the classroom, you can find Mark standing in a creek or hiking in a forest. He is passionate about our planet!