Dr. Natasha Batalha is a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center who studies the atmospheres of worlds beyond the Solar System, also called exoplanets. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University and a dual Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in Astrobiology & Astrophysics. Throughout her career she has garnered awards such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority Scholarship, the University of California President’s Fellowship, and NASA Ames Early Career Award. Her research is focused on building physical models to help learn about the atmospheres of exoplanets using primarily space based telescopes. This entails measuring exoplanet atmospheres' climate and chemical compositions by leveraging spectroscopy. Furthermore, all Dr. Batalha’s models are all publicly available via Github, as she strives to create a field that is accessible and inclusive. Dr. Batalha is co-leading the largest exoplanet observing campaign, via the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), to study the atmospheres of a mysterious class of planets between the size of Earth and Neptune. Specifically, the infrared capacity of the JWST enables a more detailed examination of exoplanet atmospheres, both because of its high degree of resolution and for its spectroscopic ability to measure chemical signatures of the gasses. This collected information might reveal the nature of the planets’ surface as well.

“My mother (below) discovers new planets and I take those planets and try to understand what their atmospheres are like. With the JWST we will be able to dig deeper and understand more about their atmospheres. By looking at the atmosphere you can get an idea of what the climate is like and get an idea of the full chemical makeup of the planet. Here on earth we have a very specific chemical makeup in our atmosphere that allows life to flourish. Geology produces carbon dioxide and methane, but life produces methane in a hundred times higher quantities. If we can look at this delicate balance between methane and CO₂ on other planets, that could give us some indication of life in the atmosphere of other planets. There may be a dozen billion such habitable worlds in our galaxy alone. The earth didn’t make its appearance until billions of years after the Milky Way formed, but there are planets that formed in the earliest moments of the Milky Way. Imagine how life could evolve on a planet given 10–12 billions of years of evolution.”
 

Natalie M. Batalha is professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz). Prior to her arrival at UC Santa Cruz Dr. Batalha was a research astronomer in the Space Sciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center working on NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science Coalition, (NExSS). From 2011 to 2017 Dr. Batalha held the position of Co-Investigator and Mission Scientist on the Kepler Mission, the first mission capable of finding Earth-size planets around other stars.

A Northern California native, Natalie Batalha earned her B.S. in physics and astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 and her Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1997. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At UC Santa Cruz, Dr. Batalha’s research pursuits include exploring the diversity of planets in our galaxy using both space-based telescopes like TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the Webb/JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), and UCSC’s ground-based telescopes like the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the proposed TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope). Dr. Batalha is also engaged in multidisciplinary study of planetary habitability.

Dr. Batalha started her career studying young, sun-like stars. After her post-doc in Rio de Janeiro, Batalha returned to California, joining the team led by William Borucki at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field to work on transit photometry — a material technology for finding exoplanets.

Batalha served ten years as professor of physics and astronomy at San Jose State University (SJSU). While at San Jose State, Dr. Batalha was Director of the Systems Teaching Institute at the NASA Research Park, which involved creating programs, curricula, and resources for students pursuing careers in space science domains related to the mission of NASA Ames.

After ten years at SJSU, Dr. Batalha moved to the Astrophysics Branch of the Space Sciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center to focus on the Kepler Mission.

Dr. Batalha has history with the Kepler Mission dating to the proposal, design, and funding stages. Indeed she contributed key input to planning the project. Through Batalha’s earlier work with the Vulcan telescope, a robotic ground-based telescope (a Kepler testbed) at Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, she was one of the few people who realized that moving the Kepler’s area of study slightly above the plane of the Milky Way would lessen the problem of light contamination.

From 2011 to 2017, Batalha served as the Lead Scientist for NASA’s Kepler Mission, which discovered 2,700 confirmed exoplanets before the telescope was retired in 2018. As a Kepler team member, Dr. Batalha was responsible for the selection of the more than 150,000 stars the spacecraft monitored. She dealt with various aspects of Kepler’s findings, studying the monitored stars and searching for the planets related to them.

Batalha led Kepler’s first efforts to generate high-reliability catalogs of planet detections. She led the analysis leading to Kepler’s first confirmation, in 2011, of a rocky planet outside our solar system, Kepler-10b.

In 2013, Dr. Batalha was on the taskforce that defined NASA’s Astrophysics Roadmap, “Enduring Quests, Daring Visions: NASA Astrophysics in the Next Three Decades”.

In 2015, Dr. Batlha joined the leadership team of a new NASA initiative dedicated to the search for evidence of life beyond the Solar System, along with scientists from the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, two research institutes, and ten universities. NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science Coalition (NExSS), brings teams from multiple disciplines together to understand the diversity of worlds and draw further discoveries, understanding, and knowledge from Kepler data and to characterize which of Kepler’s exoplanets are most likely to harbor life. Batalha also serves on the James Webb Space Telescope Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council’s Astrophysics Subcommittee.

In November 2017, Dr. Batalha’s Webb project, “The Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program”, was awarded 52.1 hours of observation when the the Space Telescope Science Institute selected 13 programs among which to allocate 460 observation hours in the Director’s Discretionary Early Release Science (DD-ERS) on the James Webb Space Telescope.

Among Natalie M. Batalha’s honors and awards are:

• In 2011 a NASA Public Service Medal for her vision in communicating Kepler science to the public and for outstanding leadership in coordinating the Kepler Science Team.
• In 2017, the 2017 Lecar Prize from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics recognizing her “exceptional contributions to the study of exoplanets”. Dr. Batalha is the first NASA employee to receive this honor.
• In 2017, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award for the Physical Sciences.
• In 2017, Dr. Batalha was named among the “TIME 100: The Most influential people of 2017” for her Kepler work.
• In 2018, the University of California Santa Cruz Alumni Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed on a graduate of the campus.
• In 2019, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.

Dr. Natalie Batalha firmly believes that in the future her grandchildren will be able to point to a star and say, ‘Look there’s life.’ “This will be a more profound moment even than the Copernican moment which took Earth out of the center of the universe, because it is going to put an end to cosmic loneliness. It is going to fundamentally change what we see when we look up into the night sky.”
 

Dr. Benton is a recently retired family physician with a keen interest in astronomy and human spaceflight since the Apollo missions to the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Having grown up on a dairy farm in rural New Zealand, Chris graduated from the University of Auckland as a medical doctor in 1986 before commencing his own private practice in 1991. After 25 years of caring for a semi-rural community just north of Auckland, an opportunity to semi-retire arose in 2014, allowing him to continue his passion for medicine and return to school for a Master's Degree in Astronomy. These studies ignited his long-time interest in astronomy and spaceflight, including researching the hazards of space travel on the human body and mind. Chris completed this degree in 2020, fully retired from medicine in 2021, and now enjoys astronomy and medical communication work, writing articles and speaking on related topics. He has won three writing awards for the Auckland Astronomical Society, including one on the medical aspects of human spaceflight.

As the president of his local Hibiscus Coast Astronomical Society and a committee member of the Auckland Astronomical Society, the latter with over 600 active members, Chris regularly gives talks to both groups on the principles of general astronomy, planetary science, and cosmology. He also frequently talks to various community groups and colleges on astronomical and medical matters of interest to the public. These public speaking events allowed him to continue using his skill of explaining complex ideas in plain language, which he developed and enjoyed during his long and rewarding career in family medicine.

He learned the night sky constellations and many astronomical objects for years with his manually-operated 8-inch Dobsonian reflector telescope. Inspired by the knowledge and pleasure this provided, he bought an 11-inch GoTo Schmidt-Cassegrain for his fiftieth birthday to explore the beautiful New Zealand dark skies to a deeper level. His stargazing activities include transporting the new telescope to the nearby Great Barrier Island, one of the few International Dark Sky Sanctuaries.

Chris has ever-lasting fond memories of the 2017 and 2019 total solar eclipses in the USA and Chile, respectively, through Insight Cruises/Sky & Telescope tours, and is looking forward to their upcoming solar eclipse adventures in 2023, 2024, and 2027.
 

Astronomer and science communicator Dr. Richard Tresch Fienberg was the American Astronomical Society’s Press Officer from September 1, 2009 until his retirement on September 1, 2021.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Rick was locked into astronomy and space exploration as a career in 1968. In that pivotal year, he received a small telescope as a 12th birthday gift, read The Universe: From Flat Earth to Quasar by Isaac Asimov, got caught up in the excitement of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon, and was riveted by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Rick majored in physics at Rice University. During the summer of 1976, between his sophomore and junior years, he spent a month at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an undergraduate intern with NASA’s Viking mission, working on both the orbiter and lander teams.

While pursuing his doctorate, he worked with Giovanni Fazio and a team of NASA and University of Arizona scientists in developing one of the first digital infrared cameras suitable for use on telescopes. Fazio’s later selection as team leader for the Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera rose from that team success.

“Even before I finished my Ph.D.,” says Fienberg, “I realized that I enjoyed teaching and writing about astronomy more than I liked doing research.” Accordingly, in September 1986 he joined the staff of Sky & Telescope magazine as an assistant editor. Over the next 22 years Rick served in a variety of editorial and management positions at S&T, including eight years as Editor in Chief and nine as President of parent company Sky Publishing. In 2009 he became the AAS Press Officer.

Rick is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The International Astronomical Union (IAU) — which he served as President of Commission C2, Communicating Astronomy with the Public, from August 2018 to August 2021 — named asteroid 9983 Rickfienberg in his honor. In 2018 NASA awarded him its Exceptional Public Achievement Medal “for exceptional service to the nation in [his] tireless efforts for the public’s safe solar viewing of the 2017 total solar eclipse.”

In 2019, the North East Region of the Astronomical League (NERAL) gave him the Walter Scott Houston Award for his “many years enlightening [amateur astronomers] and educating the public.”

Rick is currently Senior Contributing Editor of S&T. He continues to serve the AAS as Senior Advisor to the Executive Officer and Program Manager of the AAS Solar Eclipse Task Force, helping prepare North America for the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse and the April 8, 2024 total eclipse.

Trained as a professional astronomer, Rick nevertheless remains an amateur at heart, observing the sky and taking astrophotos from his private observatory in central New Hampshire. An inveterate traveler and eclipse-chaser, Rick has visited all seven continents and the North and South Poles. He and his wife Susan — who retired in 2019 from a career in senior health and housing — are the parents of three grown sons and have three young grandchildren.
 

Professor Jeffrey A. Hoffman is a member of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Dr. Hoffman earned a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Amherst College in 1966 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Harvard University in 1971. He subsequently received a M.Sc. in Materials Science from Rice University in 1988. Dr. Hoffman’s original research interests were in high-energy astrophysics — cosmic gamma ray and X-ray astronomy. His doctoral work at Harvard was a balloon-borne, low-energy, gamma ray telescope. He spent one year as a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, after which he joined the research staff of the Physics Department at Leicester University in the UK (1972–1975), where he worked on several X-ray astronomy rocket payloads and was project scientist for the medium-energy X-ray experiment on the European Space Agency’s EXOSAT satellite. From 1975–1978, he worked at MIT’s Center for Space Research, where he was project scientist in charge of the orbiting HEAO-1 A4 hard X-ray and gamma ray experiment, launched in August 1977. He also contributed extensively to analysis of X-ray data from the SAS-3 satellite, being operated by MIT. His principal research was the study of X-ray bursts, about which he authored or co-authored more than 20 papers.

Dr. Hoffman served in the Astronaut Corps from 1978–1997, making five space flights and becoming the first astronaut to log 1,000 hours of flight time aboard the Space Shuttle. Dr. Hoffman’s assignments included testing guidance, navigation, and flight control systems. He worked with the orbital maneuvering and reaction control systems, with crew training, and with the development of satellite deployment procedures. Dr. Hoffman served as a support crewmember for STS-5 and as a CAPCOM (spacecraft communicator) for the STS-8 and STS-82 missions. For several years, Dr. Hoffman was the Astronaut Office representative on the Payload Safety Panel. Dr. Hoffman was a co-founder of the Astronaut Office Science Support Group. During 1996 he led the Payload and Habitability Branch of the Astronaut Office.

Dr. Hoffman’s spaceflight experience included serving as Payload Commander of STS-46, the first flight of the US-Italian Tethered Satellite System. He played a key role in coordinating the scientific and operational teams working on this project. Dr. Hoffman has performed four spacewalks, including the first unplanned, contingency spacewalk in NASA’s history (STS-51-D; April, 1985) and three spacewalks during the initial rescue/repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope (STS-61; December, 1993). He worked for several years as the Astronaut Office representative for EVA and helped develop and carry out tests of advanced high-pressure space suit designs and of new tools and procedures needed for the assembly of the International Space Station.

Following his astronaut career, Dr. Hoffman spent four years as NASA’s European Representative, based at the US Embassy in Paris.

In August 2001, Dr. Hoffman joined the MIT faculty, where he teaches courses on space operations and design. Dr. Hoffman is director of the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, responsible for statewide NASA-related educational activities designed to increase public understanding of space and to attract students into aerospace careers. His principal areas of research are advanced EVA systems, space radiation protection, management of space science projects, human-robotic exploration strategies, ISRU (in situ resource utilization, i.e., “living off the land”), and space systems architecture. Dr. Hoffman was a member of the MIT/Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Concept Evaluation and Refinement BAA team, optimizing architectures for lunar and Martian exploration. He has been the faculty mentor for numerous teams of MIT students competing in NASA challenges. He led a project to develop an Earth-based flying testbed for a planetary surface hopper exploration system. He is currently Deputy Principal Investigator of the MOXIE experiment on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which is, for the first time, producing oxygen from local Martian resources.

Dr. Hoffman is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics; the International Astronomical Union; the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; the American Astronomical Society; the Spanish Academy of Engineering; Phi Beta Kappa; and Sigma Xi. From 2008–2018 he held the post of Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester, in the UK and is a Professor at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. He has received honorary doctorates from Leicester University (1997) and Amherst College (1999).

Among his honors and awards are a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 1966–67; a National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 1966–71; a National Academy of Sciences Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellowship, 1971–72; a Harvard University Sheldon International Fellowship, 1972–73; and a NATO Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1973–74. Dr. Hoffman was awarded NASA Space Flight Medals in 1985, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 1996; NASA Exceptional Service Medals in 1988, 1992, and 2002; and NASA Distinguished Service Medals in 1994 and 1997. He was awarded the V. M. Komarov and the Sergei P. Korolyov Diplomas by the International Aeronautical Federation in 1991 and 1994. As part of the Hubble Space Telescope Rescue Team, he was awarded the National Aeronautic Association Collier Trophy in 1993, the Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurels for Achievements in Space in 1993, the American Astronautical Society Victor A. Prather Award in 1994, the Freedom Forum Free Spirit Award in 1994, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Support Systems Award in 1995. In 2007, Dr. Hoffman was elected to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was awarded the Centennial Medal from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
 

Betül Kaçar (pron. BE-tuel KUH-charr) is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Bacteriology. She received her Ph.D. in Biomolecular Chemistry from Emory University, and completed her postdoctoral studies at NASA Astrobiology Institute and Harvard University on Origins of Life and Evolutionary Biology. Her research group investigates the coevolution of cellular life and environment in lifeforms extinct and extant, using experimental and computational systems. Dr. Kaçar was selected to receive a Stanley Miller Early Career Award in 2022, a Scialog fellow for Search for Life in the Universe in 2021, and was named a NASA Early Career Fellow in 2020. She partnered with the 2020 UN Women Generation Equality Campaign to support education of girls and women globally and was named a Way Cool Scientist by the Science Club for Girls in 2017. In 2021, she was selected to direct a new NASA-funded multimillion-dollar astrobiology research center focusing on life’s early evolution with emphasis on the natural selection elements over geologic time. In 2022, she was appointed as one of the leaders of a new NASA Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Early Cellular Evolution. In 2022 she delivered a TED talk on the mainstage discussing the chemical cocktail of life in the cosmos.

Her research is focused on origins of life, the biology of early Earth, and how understanding life’s emergence and early mechanisms may assist finding life beyond Earth. One of Dr. Kaçar’s research areas is into molecular paleobiology where she and a team are building molecular time machines to explore and attempt to resurrect lost histories to understand why life is the way it is today and to compare biosignatures to potential signatures detected elsewhere in the universe.

Professor Betül Kaçar received her Ph.D. from Emory University working jointly in the Department of Chemistry and the Emory School of Medicine. She was awarded a NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2012 to bring abstractly reconstructed ancestral DNA sequences into the lab for physical, chemical, and biological characterization by expressing inferred DNA sequences in modern organisms. Between 2014 and 2017 she was a fellow at the Harvard University Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department as a part of Harvard Origins Initiative. In 2018, she joined the University of Arizona as a professor where focused on reconstructing key enzymatic intermediates between biological activity and global geochemical reservoirs throughout the Earth’s deep history together with Molecular Biology, Astronomy, and Lunar and Planetary Departments. In 2021, she moved her laboratory to the UW-Madison. She is currently directing a NASA astrobiology research center at the UW-Madison Department of Bacteriology.

Dr. Kacar was named a NASA Early Career Faculty Fellow in 2019, and a Scialog Fellow for the Search for life in the Universe in 2020 by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Kavli Foundation. She was awarded grants from the John Templeton Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Human Frontiers in Science Program, NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Programs, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute, as well as Harvard Origins Initiative, the University of Arizona and the UW-Madison Alumni Foundation to continue this work deeper into the past.

Dr. Kaçar’s work has been recognized by various media outlets, such as the UN Women, UNICEF, European Union Delegation on Education, NOVA Science, BBC, NPR Science Friday, MIT Technology Review, Vice News, Wired, PBS, CNN, and others. In 2012 she co-founded SAGANet (The Online STEM Mentorship and Education Network), she serves on the Board of Advisory Committee of the MIT BioBuilder Foundation, and was named “Way Cool Scientist” by the Science Club for Girls, USA in 2016.

• Betül Kaçar TED talk
• Betül Kaçar United Nations Generation Equality Campaign
• Watch a PBS documentary featuring her work: Origins of Life
• Watch a recent interview with the WGBH Boston:
• Listen to her interview with the SETI Institute Podcast: Cells, Planets, Astrobiology
• NASA Early Career Spotlight Series: Dr. Betul Kacar (University of Arizona)
• Betul Kacar Interview Turk of America Magazine 
• John Templeton Foundation Q&A: Five Questions with Betül Kaçar

Professor Garrett Reisman is a member of the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC. Dr. Reisman earned two B.S. degrees (magna cum laude) from University of Pennsylvania in 1991, and an M.S. (1992) as well as a Ph.D. (1996) in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected by NASA as a mission specialist in June 1998, Dr. Reisman reported for training in August 1998. Astronaut Candidate Training included orientation briefings and tours, numerous scientific, and technical briefings, intensive instruction in shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) systems, physiological training, and ground school to prepare for T-38 flight training as well as learning water and wilderness survival techniques. After completing this training, Dr. Reisman was assigned to the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch where he worked primarily on the ISS robotic arm. In October 2001, Dr. Reisman was assigned to the Astronaut Office Advanced Vehicles Branch, where he worked on the displays and checklists to be used in the next-generation space shuttle cockpit.

SPACE MISSION EXPERIENCE: His first mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-123), launched March 11, 2008, which dropped him off for a 95-day mission aboard the International Space Station — working with both the Expedition 16 and Expedition 17 crews as a flight engineer. Astronaut Reisman returned to Earth with the crew of STS-124 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on June 14, 2008. During his three-month tour of duty aboard the ISS, Dr. Reisman performed one spacewalk totaling seven hours of EVA and executed numerous tasks with the ISS robotic arm and the new robotic manipulator, Dextre.

Astronaut Reisman’s second mission was as “Mission Specialist 1” aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-132, which launched on May 14, 2010. During this mission he logged an additional 11 days, 18 hours and 28 minutes in space, including two more spacewalks. During seven days of docked operations, Dr. Reisman logged 14 hours of EVA which included operating the ISS robotic arm and installed the Russian-built Mini Research Module to the ISS. He also installed a spare antenna and a stowage platform for Dextre, replaced the last of the P6 truss batteries, and retrieved a power data grapple fixture. The STS-132 mission was completed on May 26, 2010 after 186 orbits, traveling 4,879,978 miles.

Born February 10, 1968, in Morristown, New Jersey, Astronaut Reisman considers Parsippany, New Jersey, to be his hometown. Recreational interests include flying, skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, mountaineering, canyoneering and scuba diving. Dr. Reisman is an FAA certified flight instructor. Currently Dr. Reisman is a Professor of Astronautical Engineering at USC and a Senior Advisor at SpaceX.
 

Tim Russ has been working within the entertainment industry for over thirty years. His talents encompass a wide spectrum of the performing arts including composing, music (guitar and vocals), acting, writing, directing, voice-over and producing. Mr. Russ received his B.S. in Theater at St. Edward’s University Austin TX, and completed one year of post graduate work in theater at Illinois State University.

As an actor, Mr. Russ has worked in a cross section of feature film and television, including Karma, 5th Passenger, Live Free or Die Hard, Spaceballs, as well as regular roles in the TV series The Highwayman, The People Next Door, Star Trek: Voyager, Samantha Who, and iCarly. He has also appeared in numerous stage plays including the original Los Angeles premier of Dreamgirls.

Mr. Russ has performed as a musician for over 40 years, playing rhythm, lead, and bass guitars, well as solo vocals. His musical talents are showcased on several CD’s currently distributed through iTunes and CD Baby.

As a writer/producer Mr. Russ currently shared the helm in the production of the feature, East of Hope Street, which won Best Feature Film, and Best Actress on the festival circuit. He was also the recipient of the Sony Innovator’s Award for a commercial he produced entitled, The Zone.

Mr. Russ has also been active in the TV/Film directing arena with credits including the television series, Star Trek: Voyager, and the feature films, Life on the Rocks, Junkie, Night at the Silent Movie Theater, the pilot presentation Renegades, the award-winning web series, Bloomers, and a collection of short stories he has written and directed entitled, Frame of Mind, Volumes I & II. Mr. Russ has also received and Emmy Award for his directing on several commercials for the FBI.

Mr. Russ has expanded his performing talents to include voice-over. His recent V.O. credits include; the Cartoon Network’s Sym-Bionic Titans, six audio books, a number of video games, and several radio commercials. He has also co-produced a musical children’s book and CD entitled, Bugsters, which won the National Parenting Award, and is featured on the playlist for the Fisher Price MP3.

But as Sky & Telescope’s Lauren Sgro notes: “An actor and director by day, by night he is an amateur astronomer who has been watching the sky for decades.”

Mr. Russ’ amateur astronomy interest predates his Star Trek work. He didn’t have a specific formative experience, or an astronomy mentor. Rather, it was a strong interest that he committed to pursuing as a young adult.

As a long-time member of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, he has routinely contributed to outreach programs with his 10-inch Dobsonian telescope. Mr. Russ has been a part of many other outreach initiatives bringing the the unique perspective of someone who has represented humanity’s exploration of space in science fiction and through telescopes.

Most recently Mr. Russ spoke at the International Dark-Sky Association’s Under One Sky 2022. There he and astronaut Nicole Stott, prompted by IDA’s board member Mike Simmons, conversed about the impact of gazing down at Earth in developing new perspectives, including that our fragile world should be celebrated and protected.

Being an avid astronomer, Mr. Russ is part of the Unistellar (Connected Smart Telescope) Global Network of Citizen Astronomers, which partners with the SETI Institute to detect and record observations made across the planet. In Summer 2021, he and five fellow Unistellar eVscope and eQuinox telescope users helped detect the Jupiter Trojan Asteroid Patroclus. This asteroid is part of a binary system with its companion Menoetius. The data the citizen astronomers gathered will assist the Lucy spacecraft to safely navigate as it flies by Patroclus binary system in 2033.

Our speaker’s love of astronomical observation is clear in his comments to Sudiksha Kochi of USA Today. Mr. Russ said: “The scope and scale of the universe are incalculable and to be able to observe that inside an eyepiece to me is just absolutely phenomenal.”