People
We are advancing society through exploration
We strive to embrace diversity in all its forms, including race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, age, ability, veteran status, and neurotype. We believe achieving greater diversity in our faculty, staff, and partners will advance our mission to create positive space futures.
Our team is built on character, rooted in deliberation, and energized through action. Respect, curiosity, and inclusivity drive our culture and the space futures we seek to create.
Work with us!
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Michael Crow
President & Professor
An academic leader and educator, science and technology policy scholar, he is guiding the transformation of ASU into one of the nation’s leading public metropolitan research universities
Linda Elkins-Tanton
Vice President
Lindy Elkins-Tanton is the vice president of the Interplanetary Initiative at ASU and Principal Investigator of the NASA Psyche mission. She received her doctorate from MIT in 2002.
Expertise Areas:
Planetary Sciences, Higher and Postsecondary Education
Jessica Rousset
Director
Expertise Areas:
Biotechnology, Intellectual Property, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Business Process Management, Strategic Planning, Business Model Innovation, Leadership, Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Biomedical Engineering, Technological Entrepreneurship and Management
Joe DuBois
Sr. Engineer, Interplanetary Laboratory
Joe DuBois (jdubois2@asu.edu) has 30 years of experience in small satellite design and development. Starting in 1990, he helped grow the startup Spectrum Astro for 10 years and 5 spacecraft developments. His work at Spectrum Astro and later Honeywell earned him 7 patents for spacecraft architecture and components. In 2017, DuBois joined ASU as a lead in the development of the LunaH-Map cubesat. He is now at the ASU Interplanetary Initiative managing the Interplanetary Laboratory.
Evgenya Shkolnik
Associate Director
Evgenya Shkolnik is a professor of
astrophysics at the School of Earth
and Space Exploration at Arizona State
University. She is an expert on stars,
exoplanets, and the potential habitability
of exoplanetary systems.
Expertise Areas:
Astrophysics, Astronomy
Sid Vaidy
Student Lab Lifeguard)
Lisa B. Callahan
Ms Callahan is Vice President and General Manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin Space. Whether it’s returning humans to the moon, gathering samples from asteroids, exploring the planets of our solar system or peering back in time with the Hubble telescope, Lisa leads the teams who are building and operating the spacecraft that are unlocking the riddles of our universe.
Rejane Cantoni
Ms. Cantoni is based in São Paulo, Brazil. She holds several postgraduate degrees and taught art and technology at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Her installations use sound, visuals and touch to allow the public to explore unique environments.
Tracy Drain
Tracy is a Flight Systems Engineer working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Over her 20-year career, she has helped to develop, test and operate a variety of robotic spacecraft to explore our Solar System. A life-long learner, she loves encouraging people of all ages to nurture their curiosity and to explore the wonders that science and technology make available to us.
Tanja Masson-Zwaan
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Ms Masson-Zwaan is President Emerita of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL). She advises the Dutch Government on space law issues and co-founded the Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group. She served on various Boards, including the European Centre for Space Law, Women in Aerospace-Europe, the Netherlands Space Society and Secure World Foundation.
Rob Meyerson
Mr. Meyerson is an aerospace executive providing management consulting services to the aerospace, mobility, technology, and financial sectors; specializing in concept development through execution, scaling teams from zero to hundreds, and utilizing extensive government, industry, and university networks to ensure success, as he previously did for NASA, Kistler Aerospace, and as the former President of Blue Origin.
Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning New York Times Bestselling novelist of science fiction and fantasy for children and adults. Born in the United States to Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for drawing from African cultures to create captivating stories with unforgettable characters and evocative settings. Nnedi has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Eisner and Lodestar Awards and multiple Hugo Awards, amongst others, for her books. Her fans include Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, John Green, Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula K. Le Guin. She holds a PhD in Literature and lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her daughter Anyaugo. Learn more at nnedi.com. You can also follow her on Twitter (@nnedi) and Instagram (@nnediokorafor).
Amy Salzhauer
Ms Salzhaur is a Founder and Managing Partner at Good Growth Capital, an early-stage venture fund investing in transformative science and technology. Amy was previously the CEO of Ignition Ventures, speaks and teaches internationally about entrepreneurship and leadership, holds several patents, and has degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and MIT.
Jessy Kate Schingler
Open Lunar Foundation
Ms. Schingler is a founding board member and chief policy analyst at the Open Lunar Foundation, focused on policy and institution design for near term lunar activity. She is also an affiliate at Harvard’s Berman Klein Center for Internet and Society and French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), looking at the application of new institutional designs to pressing global challenges here on Earth.
John Thurmond
Principal Advisor – Geoscience (Emerging Technology) at Hess Corporation
Mr. Thurmond is currently Principal Advisor for Emerging Technology for Hess and has spent more than twenty years in the energy industry working across the value chain with a focus on innovation. He holds a PhD in Geoscience from the University of Texas at Dallas, and currently resides in Houston, TX.
Scott Webster
Mr. Webster was a co-founder, executive and director of Orbital Sciences Corporation and a director of its successor, Orbital ATK, as these grew from three to 12,000 employees and zero to $5 billion in sales. He’s a director of ENSCO, Inc., FreeFall Aerospace and former board chair of ORBCOMM, Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions and MBDA, Inc.
The Interplanetary Scholars represent a broad range of educators, scholars, thinkers, and researchers across and outside of ASU who aspire to create an inclusive and sustainable interplanetary future, and have ideas on how to get there.
Robert LiKamWa
Assistant Professor – ASU, School of Arts, Media and Engineering (AME) and School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering (ECEE).
Computer engineering, augmented and virtual reality
