CONFERENCE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Tuesday Keynote Speaker Frank Cepollina

Tuesday Luncheon Speaker Daniel Glavin

Wednesday Keynote Speaker Edward Hawkins

Thursday Keynote Speaker Amber Straughn

Tuesday Keynote Speaker - Frank Cepollina Mr. Frank Cepollina serves as the Associate Director for the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. Known as the "Father of On-Orbit Servicing," Mr. Cepollina's exceptional leadership has generated many of the groundbreaking concepts, designs and procedures that have kept the Hubble Space Telescope at the cutting edge of technology throughout its long lifespan. Since 2009, Mr. Cepollina has led the multifaceted SSCO team in advancing cutting-edge robotic technologies, tools, and techniques for on-orbit servicing. Under his leadership, his team released a congressionally mandated study in 2010 on the vision, challenges, and roadmap to achieving future satellite servicing on orbit. His office's innovative 2010 Robotic Refueling Mission, which was rapidly developed, built and launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in an "impossible" eighteen months, represents an important milestone in the use of ISS for technology development. The RRM technology demonstration is laying the foundation for future robotic servicing missions in space. SSCO continues to push forward cutting-edge satellite servicing technologies in contact dynamics, autonomous rendezvous and capture, and on-orbit satellite inspection and refueling. In addition to leading the Satellite Servicing Project and the Solar Maximum Repair Mission - NASA's first on-orbit repair mission - he headed the historic 1993 effort that corrected Hubble's blurred vision. As the Deputy Associate Director of the Hubble Space Telescope Development Project, Mr. Cepollina and his team completed four more servicing missions to Hubble in 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2009. In 1998 he demonstrated new Hubble technology aboard STS-95 ("the John Glenn Mission"). Mr. Cepollina graduated from University of Santa Clara in 1959 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. In recognition of his sustained, superior accomplishments in managing NASA programs, in 2000 the President of the United States conferred upon him the rank of Meritorious Executive in Senior Executive Service. In 2003, Mr. Cepollina was inducted to the exclusive National Inventors Hall of Fame for his visionary work in modular spacecraft design and satellite servicing. He was the 2010 recipient of the Moe. I. Schneebaum Memorial Award for Engineering, NASA Goddard's highest recognition for an engineering contribution. Spin-offs from his work have led to advances in computer chip technology, manufacturing instruments, and breast-cancer detection.

Tuesday Luncheon Speaker - Dr. Daniel Glavin Dr. Daniel Glavin is an Astrobiologist in the Planetary Environments Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and is a Participating Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory Mission. Daniel first became involved in Astrobiology research in 1996 when a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica, called Allan Hills 84001, revealed possible remnant of an ancient martian life forms. Although Dr. Glavin's research suggested that some of the chemical evidence was compromised by terrestrial contamination in Antarctica, the ALH 84001 discovery energized the Astrobiology community and the red planet continues to be one of the primary targets for exploration and the search for life beyond Earth. He helped develop and test the wet chemistry experiment that is part of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite onboard the MSL rover Curiosity. SAM, a microwave oven-sized mass spectrometer will investigate the martian atmosphere, rocks, and soil to look for water, organic compounds, and other biologically important elements required by life as we know it. Dr. Glavin is also the Principal Investigator of a NASA Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development study to build a miniaturized pyrolysis mass spectrometer instrument called Volatile Analysis by Pyrolysis of Regolith (VAPoR). VAPoR is designed to be operated robotically or by humans to rapidly detect water, complex organics, and other gases released from rocks on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, comets and other planetary objects of Astrobiological interest. According to Dan, the possibility for extraterrestrial life in our solar system is not limited to Mars, but other "habitable" worlds might exist including the icy Moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Europa and Enceladus that may have large sub-surface oceans capable of supporting life. The challenge for scientists and engineers in the next couple of decades will be to design miniaturized instruments and technologies capable of detecting the signatures of life in our own solar system and beyond. Dr. Glavin's talk will describe the concept of a "habitable environment" and the conditions on the ancient Earth that led to the origin of life. Understanding the basic requirements for life and the prebiotic chemistry that led to the emergence of life on Earth will help guide our search for life beyond Earth. Daniel will also give an overview of the MSL mission and the current status of future Mars missions.

Wednesday Keynote Speaker - Dr. Ed Hawkins Dr. S. Edward Hawkins, III, has been designing and building space instruments for more than 25 years at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) in Laurel, Md. He is the Lead Instrument Engineer for the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on the MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission to Mercury. A native of Baltimore, Ed received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland College Park, in 1986, and subsequently accepted an entry-level position in the Space Department's Power and Thermal Group. He soon transferred into the Space Sciences Instrumentation Group, where he has remained. A member of the Principal Professional Staff and Supervisor of the Optical Systems Development Section, Hawkins has led numerous instrument development efforts, including the NEAR-Shoemaker Multi-Spectral Imager, the Ulysses HI-SCALE instrument, and most recently the MESSENGER MDIS Instrument. Dr. Hawkins continued his educational pursuits while developing space instruments at APL, receiving a Master of Science in applied physics in 1989, a Master of Arts in physics in 1993, and a Doctor of Philosophy in physics, in 1997, all from The Johns Hopkins University. He currently teaches in the JHU EP graduate program, and his research interests have covered a broad range of topics, from the bulk flows of plasma in the Jovian magnetosphere, to mapping the surface of Mercury, to tracking ballistic missiles. The MESSENGER mission was launched in 2004 to become the first mission to Mercury in 30 years. One of the primary instruments aboard the spacecraft is the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS). The design has been proven to be highly effective, and has resulted in the phenomenal success of the imaging system and the overall MESSENGER mission. During the year-long primary mission, MDIS acquired more than 88,000 images and has mapped nearly the entire planet at high resolution (mean=163 m) in monochrome, and in an eight-color map at medium resolution (mean=883 m). This presentation provides a brief overview of some the challenges to conduct a Mercury orbital mission, with particular emphasis on the engineering development of MDIS, and a synopsis of some of the spectacular images and scientific findings since entering into orbit in March of 2011.

Thursday Keynote Speaker - Dr. Amber Straughn Dr. Amber Straughn is a Research Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and serves as the Deputy Project Scientist for James Webb Space Telescope Education and Public Outreach. Amber grew up in the small farming town of Bee Branch, Arkansas where her fascination with astronomy began under beautifully dark, rural skies. She obtained her B.S. in Physics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 2002, and completed her M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics at Arizona State University in 2008. Amber has been at Goddard full-time since 2008; prior to her current role she held a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellowship. She has been involved in NASA Education and Research programs since her undergrad years, beginning with flying an experiment on NASA's microgravity KC-135 plane (the "vomit comet") in 2001. During graduate school at Arizona State, Amber received the NASA Space Grant Fellowship for summer studies, and in 2005 was awarded the 3-year NASA Harriett Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship. Amber's research focuses on interacting and star-forming galaxies in the context of galaxy assembly, and she has most recently been working on infrared spectroscopic data from the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on Hubble Space Telescope. She is a member of the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee's Early Release Science team and the HST Multi-Cycle Treasury CANDELS team. Her broad research interests include galaxy formation and evolution, galaxy mergers and interactions, physical processes induced by galaxy interactions including star formation and black hole growth, emission-line galaxies, and dark energy and its effect on the galaxy merger rate. In addition to research, Amber's role with the James Webb Space Telescope project involves working with Education and Public Outreach (EPO) activities, as well as Public Affairs and work with the media. She helps to develop the EPO Plan for the project, and participates in various public outreach efforts such as speaking at schools, astronomy clubs, museums, and research societies. She very much enjoys interacting with the public.