Ms. Amanda Acevedo has over 25 years of experience in software development, integration, test and verification, project management, cross program integration and technical leadership. Currently, she is the owner of Vedo Systems where Amanda leads a growing team of software engineers who specialize in developing high performance, reliable software solutions for human rated spacecraft. Major efforts at Vedo Systems include developing & verifying onboard flight software for NASA's Orion program and providing software, modeling, and simulation systems engineering expertise for NASA's Gateway program. Prior to her work at Vedo Systems, Amanda worked on multiple NASA programs including the Space Shuttle, X-38, and AERCam, as well as several commercial software development projects in the aerospace, energy, and medical sectors.

Examples of her past projects include developing a 6 degree-of-freedom simulation for the X-38 spacecraft, building a display and control interface for an application to monitor patient safety while in a hospital setting, an acoustic ranging project for an oil and gas application, and requirements development in support of a commercial space station module, Axiom. Amanda's technical skills have been honed through involvement in software development and integration efforts in support of the US Department of Energy, and NASA Johnson Space Center. She is an alumna of the University of Iowa's Physics & Astronomy department.

Dr. Fran Bagenal was born and grew up in England. She studied Physics and Geophysics at the University of Lancaster. In 1976, inspired by NASA’s missions to Mars and the prospect of the Voyager mission, she moved to the US for graduate study at MIT. Her 1981 PhD thesis involved analysis of data from the Voyager Plasma Science experiment in Jupiter’s giant magnetosphere. She spent 1982-1987 as a post-doctoral researcher in space physics at Imperial College, London. Voyager flybys of Uranus and Neptune brought her back to the US and she joined the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1989. She was professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences until 2015 when she chose to stop teaching and focus on NASA’s New Horizons and Juno missions. She remains a Research Scientist at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics. 

In addition to the Voyager mission, Dr. Bagenal has been on the science teams of the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Deep Space 1 mission to Comet Borrelly. She edited Jupiter: Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere (Cambridge University Press, 2004). She’s on the plasma teams of the first two New Frontiers missions: the New Horizons mission that - after a 9.5-year flight - flew past Pluto on 14th July 2015 and Juno that went into orbit over the poles of Jupiter on 4th July 2016.

In 2021 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She took the honor as an opportunity to pay back to the community by co-chairing a study on Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions.

Prof. Taviare Hawkins is currently a Professor of Physics and Chair of the Math and Sciences Division at St. Catherine University. Prior, she was chair and professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse (UWL). UWL grants the most undergraduate degrees in physics from a primarily undergraduate institution. Before that, she completed her postdoc at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in an experimental biophysics' lab. She attended graduate school at Syracuse University in New York, where she completed two MS degrees (in Computer Science and Physics) and a Ph.D. in Physics. She is an alumna of the University of Iowa, receiving her BS in Physics and minoring in African American Studies.

While at UWL, Prof. Hawkins ran a productive biophysics research laboratory and trained over 50 undergraduates in research. About half have gone on to graduate school. Her research involves working on problems at the intersection of physics, mathematics, engineering, biology, and chemistry. Dr. Hawkins is also very involved in activities that increase the number of women and other underrepresented groups in physics and astronomy, promote the sciences, and improve science students' retention and graduation rates. She uses her voice at the national and international levels to serve several professional societies. Dr. Hawkins is vice-chair elect on the American Physical Society's (APS) Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public and is an outgoing member-at-large on the Division of Biology executive committee. She is a member of the Biophysical Society (BPS) nominations committee and serves as an elected counselor on the Council on Undergraduate Research's Physics and Astronomy Division (CURPA).

Nadya Mason is the Rosalyn S. Yalow Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she specializes in experimental studies of materials. She received her B.S. from Harvard University and her PhD from Stanford University, both in physics. Dr. Mason’s research focuses on the electronic properties of small-scale materials, such as nano-scale wires and atomically thin membranes. Her research is relevant to applications involving nano-scale and quantum computing elements. She currently serves as founding Director of the Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (I-MRSEC), a $16.1 million multidisciplinary research and education center funded by the National Science Foundation, and was recently named Director of the Illinois Beckman Institute. In addition to maintaining a rigorous research program and teaching, Dr. Mason works to increase diversity in the physical sciences, particularly through mentoring, and is former chair of the American Physical Society (APS) Committee on Minorities. Dr. Mason can also be seen promoting science on local TV, at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and in a TED talk on “Scientific Curiosity.” Dr. Mason has been recognized for her work with numerous awards, including the 2009 Denise Denton Emerging Leader Award, the 2012 APS Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, and the 2019 APS Bouchet Award. In 2021 she was elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.