F

Biographies of Committee Members and Staff

MEMBERS

JOSEPH K. ALEXANDER, Chair, is a consultant in science and technology policy at Alexander Space Policy Consultants. He was a senior program officer with the Space Studies Board (SSB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine from 2005 until 2013, and he served as SSB director from 1998 until November 2005. Prior to joining the National Academies, he was deputy assistant administrator for science in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Research and Development where he coordinated a broad spectrum of environmental science and led strategic planning. From 1993 to 1994, he was associate director of space sciences at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and served concurrently as acting chief of the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics. From 1987 until 1993, he was assistant associate administrator at NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications where he coordinated planning and provided oversight of all scientific research programs. He also served from 1992 to 1993 as acting director of life sciences. Prior positions have included deputy NASA chief scientist, senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and research scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. His book, Science Advice to NASA: Conflict, Consensus, Partnership, Leadership, was published in 2017. His research interests were in radio astronomy and space physics. He has a B.A. and M.A. in physics from the College of William and Mary.

JOHN R. CASANI is a consultant who is retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a recipient of several NASA awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal. He received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space System Award, the von Karman Lectureship, the National Space Club Astronauts Engineer Award, the American Astronautical Society’s Space Flight Award, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He held senior project positions on many of the Mariner missions to Mars and Venus and in 1970 became project manager of Mariner 6 and 7. Later, Dr. Casani would project-manage NASA’s Voyager mission to the outer planets, Galileo mission to Jupiter, and Cassini mission to Saturn, as well as the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and an honorary member of the AIAA. Dr. Casani holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and an honorary degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Rome, Italy.

LEROY CHIAO is co-founder and CEO of One Orbit, LLC. He is a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station (ISS) commander. He works in business, consulting, executive coaching and space education. He is a professional international speaker, and as co-founder and the CEO of OneOrbit, provides keynotes and training to companies and schools. Dr. Chiao also holds appointments at Rice University and the Baylor College of Medicine and is an advisor to the Houston Association for Space and Science Education. He has worked in both government and commercial space programs, and has held leadership positions in commercial ventures and NASA. Dr. Chiao left NASA following a 15-year career with the agency. A veteran of four space missions, he most recently served as commander and NASA science officer of Expedition 10 aboard the ISS. He has logged more than 229 days in space—more than 36 hours of which were spent in extra-vehicular activity (EVA). He has served on the White House appointed Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, and currently serves on the Human Exploration and Operations Committee of the NASA Advisory Council. As a space station commander and space shuttle mission specialist, Dr. Chiao was also a certified co-pilot of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He is an expert in all facets of U.S. and Russian EVA hardware and operations and is EVA certified in U.S. and Russian spacesuits, tools, and training programs. He was the first American to visit China’s Astronaut Research and Training Center. Dr. Chiao is a fellow of the Explorers Club, and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and the Committee of 100. He studied chemical engineering, earning a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

DAVID P. FIDLER is the James Louis Calamaras Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and an adjunct senior fellow for cybersecurity at the Council of Foreign Relations. Professor Fidler works on international law and global governance across many policy areas, including cyberspace, global health, trade and investment, environmental protection, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and national/international security. His current research focuses on various aspects of national and international cybersecurity, including policy efforts to establish deterrence in cybersecurity policies. He is the recipient of a Fulbright New Century Scholar Award. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

JOANNE I. GABRYNOWICZ is a professor emerita of space law at the University of Mississippi and editor-in-chief emerita at the Journal of Space Law. She is a visiting professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology School of Law. Dr. Gabrynowicz advises the U.S. government and the United Nations on space law. Dr. Gabrynowicz has taught space law for 30 years. She taught at the University of North Dakota and the University of Mississippi. She is a guest lecturer at universities around the world and the author of numerous articles. Dr. Gabrynowicz is the recipient of a number of awards in the field, including Women in Aerospace’s Outstanding International Award and the International Institute of Space Law’s Lifetime Achievement award. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Gabrynowicz was the managing attorney of a New York City law firm. She is a member of the American Bar Association Forum on Aviation and Space Law and a director of the International Institute of Space Law. She earned her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University.

G. SCOTT HUBBARD is an adjunct professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, the director emeritus of the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation, and the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal New Space. He has been engaged in space-related research as well as program, project, and executive management for more than 40 years including 20 years with NASA—culminating as director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. At Stanford, his research interests include the study of both human and robotic exploration of space with a particular focus on technology and missions for planetary exploration, especially Mars. Examples include novel hybrid propulsion for applications such as a Mars Ascent Vehicle and drilling techniques for a future Mars sample return mission. He served as NASA’s first Mars program director and successfully restructured the entire Mars program in the wake of mission failures. His award-winning book entitled, Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery, describes his work on NASA’s Mars Program. He previously served as the sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and directed the impact testing that established the definitive physical cause of the accident. He was the founder of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission with its airbag landing, and was the

manager for NASA’s highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission. Prior to joining NASA, he was a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and directed a high-tech start-up company. He has received eight NASA medals, including NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. He currently chairs the SpaceX Commercial Crew Safety Advisory Panel and serves on the NASA Advisory Council as an at-large member. He has received several honorary doctorates and earned his B.A. in physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University.

EUGENE H. LEVY is the Andrew Hays Buchanan Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University. Dr. Levy’s research interests focus on theoretical cosmic physics, with an emphasis on elucidating mechanisms and processes that underlie physical phenomena in planetary and astrophysical systems. His research also includes the generation and influences of magnetic fields in natural bodies, including Earth, Sun, and planets, the theory of cosmic rays, and the theory of physical processes associated with the formation of the solar system, stars, and other planetary systems. Prior to joining Rice University, Dr. Levy served in various capacities at the University of Arizona, including as dean of the College of Science, head of the Planetary Science Department, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and professor of Planetary Science. He has won multiple awards including the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Senior Scientist Award by the Federal Republic of Germany, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Award through the University of Arizona, and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. Dr. Levy received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago.

NORINE E. NOONAN is professor emirata of biological science at the University of South Florida (USF) at St. Petersburg. Her research includes science and technology policy in the government sector, specifically with regard to space science. Dr. Noonan has more than 30 years of experience serving in both the public and academic sector as the vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at USF-St. Petersburg, dean in the School of Sciences and Math at the College of Charleston, and the branch chief of the Science and Space office at the Office of Management and Budget. Her professional activities have included membership on six National Science Foundation (NSF) advisory committees, two of which she chaired. She has also served as an expert reviewer for EPSCoR and INBRE programs in two states. In October 2005, she received the NASA Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor the agency can bestow. Dr. Noonan received her Ph.D. in cell biology and biochemistry from Princeton University.

KENNETH OLDEN is retired from the EPA. He is an environmental risk assessor who was director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment and Human Health Risk Assessment Research Program at the EPA. Prior to that, he was the founding dean of a new School of Public Health on the Hunter College campus of the City University of New York. He also served as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Nation Toxicology Program in the Department of Health and Human Services. In 1977, he became the first African-American to be awarded tenure and the rank of independent investigator at the National Institutes of Health. He held several positions at the Howard University Cancer Center, including director, professor, and chairman of the Department of Oncology. Dr. Olden has received numerous awards including the Presidential Distinguished Executive Rank Award from President William J. Clinton, the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award, the Calver Award, the Sedgwick Medal, and the Julius B. Richmond Award. Dr. Olden received a Ph.D. in cell biology and biochemistry from Temple University. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

FRANCOIS RAULIN is professor emeritus at Université Paris Est-Créteil and continues his research at the Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA). His scientific fields of interest are related to planetology, exo/astrobiology, and planetary protection. He is particularly interested in the organic chemistry of extraterrestrial environments, which he studies using a combination of laboratory experiments, theoretical modeling, and data analysis. He was a research fellow in Carl Sagan’s laboratory at Cornell University, an assistant professor at Université Paris Val de Marne, and a CNRS/NSF postdoctoral fellow at Cyril Ponnamperuma’s Laboratory of Chemical Evolution at the University of Maryland. He later became full professor at University Paris 12, director of LISA, and director of the federation of CNRS laboratories in exobiology. He has been and continues to be involved in multiple spacecraft missions and has been a co-investigator of CIRS of multiple instruments on Cassini-Huygens and Rosetta. He is currently the deputy team leader for the MOMA instrument on ExoMars

2020. His awards include the European Space Agency (ESA) award for outstanding contribution to the Huygens probe, NASA Group Achievement Award, ISSOL Fellow Award, and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. He is a past-president of the French Society of Exobiology, a former chair of ESA’s Planetary Protection Working Group, and a former member of ESA’s Human Spaceflight and Exploration Science Advisory Committee. He received his Doctorat d’Etat from the Université Paris 6.

GARY RUVKUN is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Ruvkun’s laboratory identified the first microRNA that is conserved across animal phylogeny including humans. He has also explored how bacterial attacks on animals are surveilled and countermeasures are deployed. Using comparative genomics, Dr. Ruvkun’s laboratory has been exploring the few hundred genes that are universal to all known life on Earth, inherited from a common ancestor over the past 3-4 billion years. Meteoritic exchange between Earth and Mars may have inoculated both planets with related ancestral organisms, allowing the sophisticated DNA technology of genomics to be marshalled to the detection of life on Mars. To this end, Dr. Ruvkun is collaborating on a NASA MATISSE project to engineer a DNA sequencing instrument that will be deployed to other planets to search for life that is ancestrally related to life on Earth. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the NAM. His honors and awards include the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Dan David Prize for Aging research, the Wolf Prize, the Gruber Prize, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Dr. Ruvkun has a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University.

MARK P. SAUNDERS is an independent consultant. Since retiring from NASA, he has been consulting to various NASA offices providing program/project management and systems engineering expertise. This has included support to the Office of Chief Engineer, the Office of Independent Program and Cost Evaluation, the Mars Program, and the Science Office for Mission Assessments. He has participated in the rewriting of NASA’s policy on program/project management; advised and supported the agency’s independent program/project review process; and has supported the review of various programs and projects. At NASA Headquarters, he served as director of the independent program assessment office, where he was responsible for enabling the independent review of the agency’s programs and projects at life-cycle milestones to ensure the highest probability of mission success. At NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC), he was initially the deputy director and then the director, Space Access and Exploration Program Office and had the responsibility for planning, directing and coordinating the center’s research, technology, and flight programs for advanced aerospace transportation and human/robotic exploration systems. Prior to this he was the manager of Exploration Programs and led all LaRC space exploration research and development activities supporting the agency’s Aerospace Technology, Human Exploration, and Development of Space and Space Science Enterprises. At the office of space science he served as program manager for the Discovery Program, and at the Space Station Freedom program operations he served as special assistant to the deputy director. He received the Presidential Meritorious Rank Award, Outstanding Performance awards, and multiple NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals. He earned his B.A. at the Georgia Institute of Technology in industrial engineering.

BETH A. SIMMONS is the Andrea Mitchell University Professor of Law and Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her area of expertise is primarily in international relations, international law, and international political economy, with her most current research interests including the ways in which international institutions shape and are shaped by domestic political system, and global performance assessments as informal governance mechanisms in international affairs. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Simmons was a professor of international affairs at Harvard University, director of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and president of the International Studies Association. She is a member of the NAS. Dr. Simmons received the American Political Science Association’s Woodrow Wilson Award for best book published in the United States on government, politics, or international affairs for two of her books: Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years and Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics. She received her Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

PERICLES D. STABEKIS is an independent consultant. He is retired from his position as program manager and aerospace consultant with the SETI Institute. His seminal contributions are in planetary protection. He has supported the NASA planetary protection program as principal investigator, program manager, and consultant. He has worked with all the NASA planetary protection officers, lending his expertise to the development and definition of planetary protection policy and requirements for outbound and inbound planetary missions; providing advice to international partners on requirements and methods of implementation; contributing to strategic planning and programmatic development; helping to guide NASA efforts in planetary protection-related new technology development; and monitoring planetary protection–related activities of ongoing flight projects. In his 46-year career, Mr. Stabekis worked for Exotech Systems, GE, Lockheed Martin, Windermere, Northrop Grumman, and Genex Systems. He contributed to, and managed contracts supporting NASA’s Exobiology, Astrobiology, and Life Sciences programs. He was the Lockheed flight program manager of the NASA Life Sciences’ flagship shuttle missions SLS-1 and SLS-2, as well as IML-1 and IML-2. He is a recognized expert in the field, and has authored and co-authored a number of technical and policy papers. He has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the NASA Public Service Medal, SLS-2 Group Achievement Award, and SLS-1 Group Achievement Award. He received his M.S. in aerospace engineering from Howard University.

ANDREW STEELE is a senior staff scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science. Prior to this he was a National Research Council postdoctoral scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center and a visiting research fellow at Oxford University. At Carnegie, he has worked on the question of life detection in the solar system with an emphasis on Mars. Among his research achievements are the discovery of discrete carbonaceous phases on Mars and the Moon, helping to advance the understanding of volatile cycling on Earth, the Moon, meteorites and comets, developing a robust strategy for life detection on solar system bodies, and involvement in the testing and data reduction of planetary mission data from Stardust, Apollo, Curiosity, and Rosetta missions. He has a background in the use of biological, chemical, and geological instrumentation to address the science questions he pursues in particular the search for life elsewhere. He has also played a role in the science definition of the Mars 2020 rover mission, coinvestigator on the rover’s SHERLOC instrument, and an active member of the two committees seeking to define the conditions for the safe and clean return of samples by Mars 2020 and beyond. He has served on many committees on Mars exploration for MEPAG, chairing the Astrobiology Field Laboratory mission concept team, and the NASA advisory council as a member of the Planetary Protection Subcommittee. He received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Portsmouth.

STAFF

DAVID H. SMITH joined the SSB as a senior staff officer in 1991. He has been and is the study director for a variety of National Academies’ activities in the general areas of astrobiology, planetary science, and planetary protection. He also organizes the SSB’s Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Internships and the joint SSB–Chinese Academy of Sciences Forum for New Leaders in Space Science. He received a B.Sc. in mathematical physics from the University of Liverpool in 1976, achieved the honors standard in Part III of the Mathematics Tripos at the University of Cambridge in 1977, and a D.Phil. in theoretical astrophysics from Sussex University in 1981. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Queen Mary College University of London, he held the position of associate editor and, later, technical editor of Sky and Telescope. Immediately prior to joining the staff of the SSB, Dr. Smith was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIA BROWN joined the SSB as a research associate in 2016. She comes to SSB with experience in both the civil and military space sectors and has primarily focused on policies surrounding U.S. space programs in the international sector. Some of these organizations include NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations, Arianespace, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (Austria), and the U.S. Department of State. From 2014 to 2015, Mia was the managing editor of the International Affairs Review. She received her M.A. in international space policy from the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George

Washington University. Prior to entering the Space Policy Institute, Mia received her M.A. in historical studies from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she concentrated in the history of science, technology, and medicine and defended a thesis on the development of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

ANDREA REBHOLZ joined the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board as a program coordinator in January 2009. She began her career at the National Academies in October 2005 as a senior program assistant for the NAM (formerly the Institute of Medicine) Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation. Prior to the National Academies, she worked in the communications department of a D.C.-based think tank. Ms. Rebholz has a B.A. in integrative studies—event management from George Mason University’s New Century College and earned the certified meeting professional designation in 2012. She has more than 15 years of experience in event planning, project administration, and editing.

DANIELLE MONTECALVO was a Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern at the SSB during the summer of 2017. In 2018, Ms. Montecalvo interned at the Office of International and Interagency Relations at NASA Headquarters, where she worked on space policy initiatives and public outreach projects. She graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., in May 2018 with a B.A. in international studies and physics. In fall 2018, she will begin her service as a secondary education English teacher as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar. Ms. Montecalvo is passionate about STEM education and engaging women in science, and she plans to incorporate science and math into the classroom during her service abroad. Her academic research focuses on the importance of how collegiate-level physics and other STEM courses can play a critical role in enhancing scientific literacy and shape overall attitudes toward space policy, particularly within the millennial population.