A native of Akron, Ohio, Hugh Downs is one of the most familiar American figures in the history of television. Downs attended Bluffton College in Ohio and Columbia University. He holds a post-Masters degree in gerontology, as well as honorary doctoral degrees from several universities. After serving in the U.S. Army he joined NBC in Chicago as a staff announcer.
An accomplished broadcaster, Downs began with NBC’s Home show in 1954. He helped launch The Tonight Show in 1957, and hosted the game show “Concentration” until 1962 when he began a nine-year career as the host of NBC’s Today program. Downs is most recently famous for hosting ABC’s 20/20, and in 1989 he celebrated 50 years in broadcasting.
Downs’ creativity and varied interests, including Astronomy, have
led him to author and publish over a dozen books. He also teaches, lectures,
consults and is a published composer.
A role model for communication effectiveness to the American public
for more than fifty years, Downs lends his name to the Hugh Downs School
of Human Communication at Arizona State University, where his active
involvement has led to more than a dozen undergraduate scholarships
and an enhanced national profile for the School.
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A native of Chicago, Illinois, John M. Grunsfeld graduated from Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois in 1976 and went on to earn a B.S. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.S. and PhD degrees in Physics from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Grunsfeld’s NASA experience spans over a decade, beginning with his mission specialist training in 1992, four space shuttle missions between 1995 and 2002, and contines now with his position as NASA Chief Scientist. His NASA research has explored x-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, high-energy cosmic ray studies, and the development of new detectors and instrumentation.
A veteran of four space flights, Dr. Grunsfeld has logged over 45 days in space, including 5 space walks totaling 37 hours and 32 minutes. On his missions he has docked with the Russian space station Mir to deliver supplies and exchange U.S. astronauts, and has upgraded technology on the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Gentry Lee is Chief Engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Dr. Lee is also an accomplished science fiction novelist, a futurist, a computer product designer, and a television producer.
Lee received a B. A., Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Texas
at Austin in 1963 and an M. S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1964. He also attended the University of Glasgow in Scotland on a
Marshall Fellowship for one year.
As Chief Engineer, Mr. Lee is responsible for the engineering integrity
of all the robotic planetary missions managed by JPL, including the
twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
(MRO) that is slated for launch in the late summer of 2005.
Mr. Lee was also Chief Engineer for the Galileo project, and Director of Science Analysis and Mission Planning during the Viking operations activities. Galileo sent a successful probe into the Jovian atmosphere, went into orbit around Jupiter, and then mapped the major Jovian satellites with repeated close flybys during a decade of mission operations. The two historic Viking missions touched down on Mars in the summer of 1976.
Between 1976 and 1980, Mr. Lee was partner to the late Carl Sagan in the creation, design, development, and implementation of the COSMOS television series, an award-winning science documentary that was eventually seen in more than sixty countries. For over twenty-five years Mr. Lee has given lectures all over the world on subjects related to the future, space and science and technology.
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Dr. Laurie Leshin is the Dee and John Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences, and the Director of the Center for Meteorites Studies at Arizona State University. After attending Tempe public schools, she received her B.S. in Chemistry at ASU, and her Ph.D. in 1994 from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Leshin is a cosmochemist primarily interested in deciphering the record of water on objects in our solar system – she has15 years experience performing quantitative analyses of extraterrestrial rocks in the laboratory, and participating in NASA flight projects. A primary part of her research involves using meteorites from Mars to assess the history of water and the potential for life on the red planet.
Dr. Leshin plays a major role in ASU’s Astrobiology Program where she works to understand the formation of life’s precursor molecules on asteroids. She directs research, education, and curation activities in the ASU Center for Meteorite Studies, which houses the largest University-based meteorite collection in the world. Dr. Leshin is also the leader of the Sample Collection for Investigation of Mars (SCIM) mission, which was recently a finalist for flight by NASA. If flown, SCIM could be the first robotic round-trip mission to Mars, returning valuable dust and atmosphere samples to Earth for analysis.
In 2003, Dr. Leshin was selected as the first Dean’s Distinguished
Professor in the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In 1996, she
was the inaugural recipient of the Meteoritical Society’s Nier
Prize, awarded for outstanding research in meteoritics or planetary science
by a scientist under the age of 35. The International Astronomical Union
recognized her contributions to planetary science with the naming of
asteroid 4922 Leshin.
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Melissa Wallace is a native of Arizona and attends Arizona State University where she is a senior studying Aerospace Engineering.
Melissa has been very active in the NASA Spacegrant activities on ASU's campus over the last four years. Particpating with Moon Devils, a student design team that competes every in NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race in Huntsville, AL, Melissa co-led the team to win Best Engineering Design and Best Crew awards last year. Her research in composite materials on the HARVee project, high-speed autonomous rotorcraft vehicle, aided in decreasing the overall weight of the craft. As team lead for AZeroG, the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunites Program sponsored by NASA JSC, she and her team successfully measured the effect of reduced gravity on the electrical activity of the brain.
Her experience as mARZSat, a Mars imaging satellite, deputy project manager helped to construct a strong team and database for the newly evolved program, MIMIC (Magnetic field Investigation of Mars by Interacting Consortia). As project manager of MIMIC, Melissa directs nine universities in designing a microsatellite to measure the remnant magnetic field of Mars.
Melissa received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship last summer from Caltech/JPL and was awarded the 2004 Sun Devil Star Award for leadership and committment on campus. Graduating in May 2004, Melissa plans to obtain a position in spacecraft design within industry and will enroll in graduate school in Spring of 2005 studying bioastronautics.
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