Will Marshall is the Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. He leads overall strategy for commercializing new geospatial tools and analytics that are disrupting agriculture, mapping, energy, the environment, and other vertical markets. Prior to Planet, Will was a Scientist at NASA/USRA where he worked on missions “LADEE” and “LCROSS”, served as Co-Principal Investigator on PhoneSat, and was the technical lead on research projects in space debris remediation. Will received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Oxford and his Masters in Physics with Space Science and Technology from the University of Leicester. Will was a Postdoctoral at George Washington University and Harvard.

Shawn Murphy has over 25 years of multi-industry experience where he developed technologies and businesses which were highly profitable and revolutionary in following industries: Energy Systems, Oil & Gas (O&G), Aerospace, Defense, Semiconductor, and Consumer Electronics.

Building world class teams and organizations Shawn has started multiple companies which include a software, eBook, and semiconductor company. Additionaly, Shawn was the Head of Earth and Space Science at Draper and founder of Shell TechWorks, Shell Oil & Gas innovation/engineering organization in Boston and Shanghai. Currently he is the founder of a renewable company, lowering the cost of lithium-ion-batteries by at least 30%.

Dr. Dava Newman is the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Harvard–MIT Health, Sciences, and Technology faculty member. Her research in multidisciplinary aerospace biomedical engineering investigates human performance across the spectrum of gravity, including space suits, life support and astronaut performance. Newman has been the principal investigator on 4 spaceflight missions on the Shuttle, MIR, and ISS.Known for her second skin BioSuit™ planetary spacesuit, her inventions are now being applied to “soft suits/exoskeletons” to enhance locomotion on Earth. Her BioSuit™ museum exhibits include the Venice Biennial, American Museum of Natural History, Victoria and Albert and Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her latest research includes Earth Speaks™ – an open source platform of curated space data that applies AI, natural language and supercomputer visualizations to help accelerate actions to help regenerate Earth’s oceans, land and climate. Newman is the author of Interactive Aerospace Engineering and Design, has >300 publications, and has supervised 90 graduate students and mentored >200 undergraduates.

Dr. Dava Newman served as NASA Deputy Administrator from 2015–2017, nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Along with the NASA Administrator, she was responsible for the agency's vision, leadership and policy direction, and representing NASA to the White House,Congress, international space agencies, and industry. Dr. Newman was the first female engineer to serve in this role and was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. She championed the human journey to Mars, technology and innovation, and education. She and her partner, Guillermo Trotti, circumnavigated in 2002–2003, sailing 36,000 nm around the world and teaching ‘Exploration via Space and Sea’. Newman earned her Ph.D. in aerospace biomedical engineering, Master of Science degrees in aerospace engineering and technology and policy from MIT, and her Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

James Schalkwyk
Program Manager, Breakthrough Starshot
Breakthrough Initiatives

Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, James Schalkwyk’s professional interest in interstellar travel began in in 2011 with DARPA’s 100-Year Starship program, where he worked on the institutional design of long-term, high-impact, non-governmental organizations. After DARPA, he joined NASA’s Ames Research Center where he worked variously in the Communications and New Ventures Directorate, the NewSpace-focused “Space Portal” and in the Strategic Partnerships Division. During this time, his work ran the gamut, ranging from SmallSats to low cost lunar settlements, and from policy and government relations to off-Earth resource extraction. After completing graduate school at Columbia University in 2018 he joined the Breakthrough Initiatives to manage the growing Starshot program, bringing him squarely back into the business of building starships.

Jessy has spent her career at the intersections of space, governance and technology, from formal space policy to facilitating networked communities in self-governance practices. As a software engineer most of her experience is in designing and building tools to help groups make decisions and manage resources, but she has also worked on large scale projects at NASA and in embedded systems developing flight software for rockets. Jessy is currently leading the Law and Precedents program at a small foundation focused on Lunar settlement, bringing her experience in distributed systems and process design to the questions of international space policy.

Robbie Schingler is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Planet. As CSO, Robbie leads the company’s long-term strategic trajectory and manages Planet’s Impact and US government teams. He spearheaded Planet’s acquisition of BlackBridge in 2015 and leads the company’s R&D teams, developing Planet’s next generation of remote sensing capabilities. Prior to Planet, Robbie spent 9 years at NASA, where he helped build the Small Spacecraft Office at NASA Ames and was Capture Manager for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). He received a MBA from Georgetown University, a MS in Space Studies from the International Space University, and a BS in Engineering Physics from Santa Clara University. Learn more about Robbie and Planet at www.planet.comand follow him and our Twitter for updates at @schingler and @PlanetLabs.

Evgenya Shkolnik is a professor of astrophysics at Arizona State University in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She is an expert on exoplanets and stars, including the Sun. She uses telescopes both on the ground and in space to answer questions involving stellar evolution, exoplanet magnetic fields, and planet habitability.

She is the principal investigator (PI) of the NASA SPARCS CubeSat mission, one of the first such astrophysics research missions, and PI of Hubble Space Telescope’s HAZMAT (Habitable Zones and M dwarf Activity across Time) program. Dr. Shkolnik is also a member of NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory, and several Science & Technology Advisory Committees for NASA’s upcoming space missions. She leads the Exploration Learning Working Group for the Interplanetary Initiative.

Previously, Dr. Shkolnik was an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, a Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. She earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of British Columbia. Asteroid Shkolnik (25156) was named for her.

Asif A. Siddiqi is a Professor of History at Fordham University in New York who specializes in the history of science and technology. His books include the award-winning Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974(NASA History Office, 2000). Between 2012 and 2014, he served on the National Research Council’s Committee on Human Spaceflight tasked by Congress to review long-germ goals of the U.S. human spaceflight program. He also served in 2013-14 as the Charles Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum. His most recent publication was Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958-2016(NASA History Office, 2018).

Dr Dale Stephens is a Professor at the University of Adelaide Law School. He holds a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) from Harvard Law School, and Masters degrees in law from Harvard Law School and Melbourne University. He spent 23 years as a Legal Officer in the Royal Australian Navy, attaining the rank of Captain and deployed multiple times to East Timor and Iraq. His final posting in the Navy was Director of Operations and International Law. He is currently Director of the Adelaide University Research Unit on Military Law and Ethics (RUMLAE), a board member of the Australian Yearbook of International Law, a member of the Governance Group of the Space Security Index and Co-editor in Chief of The Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations. He is married to a woman from Green Bay, WI and is a fierce Packer fan.

Dr. Ellen Stofan is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. She comes to the Museum with more than 25 years of experience in space administration and planetary science. Dr. Stofan was previously Chief Scientist at NASA, serving as the principal advisor to the Administrator on science programs and strategic planning.

She held senior scientist positions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including work on missions exploring Venus, Earth, Mars, and Saturn. She served as chief scientist for the New Millennium Program, and principle investigator on the proposed Titan Mare Explorer.

Sebastian Straube is Founder and CEO of Interstellar Ventures, which is leveraging latest technology, business-, financing-, and engagement tools to support entrepreneurs dedicated to unlocking the business and innovation potential of the growing space industry. Beside running Interstellar Ventures, he is a business mentor in leading international technology startup acceleration programs like MIT Enterprise Forum Warsaw and Singularity University Ventures in Mountain View. In 2012, Sebastian was a Member of the Social Responsible Investments Working Group, which was established at the Polish Ministry of Commerce by the former Prime Minister of Poland and the current President of the European Council, Donald Tusk.

John Thurmond is a Leading Research Geologist for Equinor, and is based in Houston, TX. He holds a Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has had multiple roles across the oil and gas industry, including geology discipline lead for one of Equinor’s largest assets, and as an exploration manager. He now focuses on finding new opportunities to make the industry more efficient and more sustainable.

Julia Tizard Hunter is responsible for the day to day running of the commercial suborbital spaceflight team, covering technical operations of the spaceflight system, flight operations and support services. Julia joined Virgin Galactic in 2006, starting in London UK. Having transferred to the US in 2009, Julia is now a member of the leadership team driving overall business strategy for the commercial sub-orbital business whilst running and building the excellent team dedicated to delivering safe and successful spaceflight operations.

Julia holds a Masters and PhD in Astrophysics, from the University of Manchester, UK. She has published papers in various areas of space science and is a member of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Women in Aviation.

Before coming to Virgin Galactic, Julia co-founded a US non-profit, District Commons, an organization and network of resources dedicated to building community and collaboration to catalyze advancing society. She is also a founder and board member of the Mojave Marathon LLC, and annual running event in the Mojave Desert.

Julia is a mother of 2 young boys and keen mountain climber and marathon runner. She enjoys all kinds of travel and exploration. She has climbed the highest peaks in the Alps and Africa and completed a marathon at the geographic North Pole in 2010. She recently joined a climbing expedition in the Tien Shan mountain range or Kyrgyzstan to put up new routes on unclimbed summits. The team claimed 12 first ascents during the expedition, 5 of which Julia was part of the climbing team for.

Dr. Erika Wagner serves as Payload Sales Director for Blue Origin, a developer of vehicles and technologies to enable human space transportation.

Prior to joining Blue Origin, Dr. Wagner worked with the X PRIZE Foundation as Senior Director of Exploration Prize Development and founding Executive Director of the X PRIZE Lab@MIT. Previously, she served at MIT as Science Director and Executive Director of the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program.

Dr. Wagner’s interdisciplinary background includes a bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, a master’s in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT, and a PhD in Bioastronautics from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Simon Peter “Pete” Worden, (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret., PhD) (born 1949, in Michigan, USA) is the Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Executive Director of the foundation’s ‘Breakthrough Initiatives’. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Astronomy for the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, Dr. Worden was Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, USA until his retirement on March 31, 2015. He has held several positions in the United States Air Force and was research professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. He is a recognized expert on space and science issues – both civil and military and has been a leader in building partnerships between governments and the private sector internationally.

Dr. Worden has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers in astrophysics space sciences, and strategic studies. He served as a scientific co-investigator for three NASA space science missions – most recently the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph launched in 2013 to study the Sun. He received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for the 1994 Clementine Mission to the moon. Dr. Worden was named the 2009 Federal Laboratory Consortium Laboratory Director of the Year and is the recipient of the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Innovator’s Award.

At the Royal Society in London on July 20, 2015, Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking and Lord Martin Rees announced a set of initiatives — a scientific program aimed at finding evidence of technological life beyond Earth entitled ‘Breakthrough Listen’ and a contest to devise potential messages named ‘Breakthrough Message’. In addition, atop the One World Trade Center in New York on April 20, 2016, Breakthrough Starshot was announced, an interstellar program to Alpha Centauri. These are the first of several privately-funded global initiatives to answer the fundamental science questions surrounding the origin, extent and nature of life in the universe. The Breakthrough Initiatives are managed by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. Breakthroughinitiatives.org

Dr. Robert Zubrin is President of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace R&D company located in Lakewood, Colorado. He is also the founder and President of the Mars Society. Formerly a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, he holds a Masters degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington. Zubrin is the author of 9 books, 15 patents, and over 200 published technical and non-technical papers in the field of space exploration and technology.