Summer Science Program, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation governed by a Board of Trustees, all of whom are alumni and/or former faculty of the program. SSP is the only non-credit enrichment program managed and largely funded by its own alumni.

Dr. Noël Bakhtian '00, Faculty '05 is a AAAS/ASME Science and Technology Policy Fellow for the US Congress. She completed a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, researching supersonic retropropulsion for high-mass Mars landings. She holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics from Duke University and a MPhil in Engineering from the University of Cambridge where she studied bird wing functionality using several wind tunnels. She chairs SSP's Alumni Relations Committee.

Dr. Amy C. Barr '94, Faculty '99-'00, '02 is an Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University. Amy graduated from Caltech with a BS in Planetary Science and the Fritz Burns Prize in Geology, for future promise in the fields of geology and planetary science. She earned a PhD in Planetary Geophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying the interior evolution of icy bodies in our solar system. Dr. Barr worked as a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO from 2006 to 2011. She has served on the Caltech Undergraduate Admissions Committee and reviewed applications as part of SSP's own Admissions Committee.

Dr. Janice L. Bishop '81, Faculty '86-'87 received a BS in chemistry and MS in applied earth science (remote sensing) at Stanford University, followed by a PhD in chemistry and planetary geology at Brown University. She received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation to work at the DLR in Berlin, then came to NASA-Ames Research Center in 1997 as a National Research Council Associate. Dr. Bishop has been a Principal Investigator at the SETI Institute since 1999 with a Cooperative Agreement at NASA-Ames Research Center, where she investigates the surface of the planet Mars, and performs research on rocks and minerals important to astrobiology. One of her current projects is searching for water on Mars by identifying phyllosilicates and sulfates in the hyperspectral CRISM images collected by the MRO spacecraft.

Richard D. Bowdon '74 worked for two decades in the field of software applications for petroleum exploration. After earning a BS in Applied & Engineering Physics at Cornell, he returned to Midland, Texas as a Field Engineer with Schlumberger Well Services. Subsequently he managed the local office of a petroleum economics software firm, and prospected for oil & gas. In 1985 he founded Energy Software, Inc., designing and marketing a leading application for well data management and subsurface mapping. Mr. Bowdon left Texas and the petroleum industry in 1999, moving with his family to North Carolina. He became SSP Executive Director in 2001.

Anna Heinz '98, Faculty '06-'08, '11 is a Registered Nurse in San Diego, holding positions at a community college health center, as a labor and delivery nurse, and on the clinical nursing faculty at the University of San Diego. She majored in Physics, German, and Religion at St Olaf College in Northfield, MN and went on to teach high school science in an underserved district in central California. While there, she developed an interest in health education and clinical care and decided to pursue a career in women's health. She studied nursing in upstate New York and then returned to California where she completed her MS in Nursing at San Diego State to become a Midwife and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner.

Dr. Susan Jerian '79 is founder of Oncord, Inc. a consulting firm focused on assisting pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies navigate the pathway to approve new medicines for a wide range serious diseases. A National Cancer Institute-trained oncologist, she was previously a Supervisory Medical Officer at the FDA and then served as Director, Clinical Oncology Research at Amgen, Inc. The focus of her career has been on the development and approval of new drugs for the treatment of cancer, many of which are in wide use today. Working side by side in the consulting practice with her husband, Dr. David Essayan, they have assisted over 100 companies world-wide. They are also parents of two teenage sons interested in science and who inspire them daily regarding the great learning and creative capacity of young scientists. An alumna of Occidental College and George Washington University, she maintains a deep interest and focus on improving science education in the US.

Dr. Eric Korevaar '76, Faculty '81-'83 received a BS in physics from Caltech in 1981, followed by an MA (1983) and PhD (1987) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. As founder and president of AstroTerra Corporation from 1993 until it was sold in 2000, Dr. Korevaar was responsible for the design and delivery of a satellite laser communications experiment, and was instrumental in establishing a commercial market for terrestrial "free space optical" communications equipment. Dr. Korevaar is currently president of The Science Artist, and provides consulting services in the field of optical physics, while helping to raise Kevin '20 and Nina '22.

Richard M. Mathews '77 is Senior System Architect at Radian Memory Systems. He is a developer of embedded, real time, and distributed operating systems and storage products. Mr. Mathews was previously Chief Technology Officer of JMR Electronics and System Architect at Curtiss Wright, where he developed software and computer storage and processing components. Prior to that, at Sun Microsystems and Locus Computing Corporation, he led groups in kernel and device driver development for Solaris x86, ChorusOS, and AIX. Studying physics and astronomy at Caltech, Mr. Mathews searched for asteroids at Palomar and calculated orbits with famed asteroid hunters Gene Shoemaker, Glo Helin, and Bobby Bus. Mr. Mathews is also active in politics and serves on the Executive Board and Legislation Committee of the California Democratic Party and on the party's Los Angeles County Central Committee.

Michael H. McKay '78 is an Adjunct Professor at Brandeis International School of Business, where he teaches courses in finance. He is also an Advisor at Bain & Company, Inc., a leading global strategy consulting firm. He holds an AB (magna cum laude) from Harvard College in economics, and an MBA from the University of Chicago, where he won the Mayer Prize as outstanding graduating student and the George Hay Brown Prize as outstanding marketing student. He retains a passion for astronomy as an amateur observer, and is passing this passion along to his three children. Mr. McKay lives in the Boston area.

Lissa Ong '99, Faculty '04-'05 earned a BA from Williams College in Astrophysics. Her research focuses on impact cratering on the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and icy satellites. She has run impact experiments at the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Sapporo University in Japan and simulated impacts at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She received an MS in Earth and Planetary Science at UC Santa Cruz and is currently working towards a doctorate at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, where she models the effects of surface propoerties on impact cratering. She is the recipient of the UC Santa Cruz Chancellors Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Dr. Scott Pace '75 is the Director of the Space Policy Institute and a Professor of Practice in International Affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. His research interests include civil, commercial, and national security space policy, and the management of technical innovation. He received a BS in Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1980; MS degrees in Aeronautics & Astronautics and Technology & Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982; and a PhD in Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School in 1989. Most recently a senior administrator at NASA Headquarters, Dr. Pace has served at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the RAND Corporation, the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Rockwell International's Shuttle Orbiter Division, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Dr. David Pierce, Faculty '74-'86, '93 is Professor of Astronomy & Physics emeritus, El Camino College. Dr. Pierce earned a BS and MS in Engineering in UCLA and a PhD in Astronomy at Yale University (specializing in orbital mechanics). A native of Los Angeles, his hobbies include ballroom dancing, growing cactus, reading, travel (to 40+ National Parks), and exercise. His recent projects include creation of an online astronomy course, and renovation of the Griffith Observatory. Dr. Pierce has been honored by the astronomical community with the naming of an asteroid: (6953) Davepierce.

Dr. Janine Scancarelli '76 entered college determined to major in physics, but received a B.A. in linguistics from Yale and a Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA. She spent several years specializing in the study of native American languages, and teaching at UCSB, the University of Kentucky, and the College of William and Mary, where she received tenure. In 1995, she left academics to attend law school at Stanford, and currently practices commercial litigation at Crowell & Moring in San Francisco. She maintains her interest in linguistics by serving on the Board of Directors of the Endangered Language Fund. Janine lives in Burlingame with her husband Christopher McMahon, who splits his time between Burlingame and Santa Barbara, where he teaches philosophy at UCSB.

Harold C. Schloss '76 is a Vice President at Merrill Lynch in Beverly Hills, Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 360, mentor to FIRST Robotics team 1836, and on the board of B'nai David-Judea Congregation. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Physical Sciences from Harvard in 1981. After working on a communications system for NATO at Litton, he moved to a pacemaker company called Pacesetter Systems Inc. in 1983, developing embedded real time systems for programming pacemakers, and later managing developers of those systems. He left what had become the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical holding 14 US patents and a number of foreign patents. In 2000 Hal moved to Merrill Lynch. He has a son at Johns Hopkins and a daughter at MIT.

Dr. Daniel Seligson '71 had a 17-year career at Intel that began before microcode was granted copyright protection and ended when GHz microprocessors were a commodity. During that time, he started the neural network group, coined the term Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, wrote the specification for the industry's transition to 300mm wafers, and launched a startup in displays using Organic Light Emitting Diodes. In his second career, he has been an investor in more than 20 early stage companies. Dan holds a BS from MIT and a PhD from Berkeley, both in Physics. He and his wife Margaret have three young children and reside in Palo Alto, CA, and Block Island, RI. His niece, Elizabeth Epstein, attended SSP in 1999.

Dr. Elizabeth Simmons '80, Faculty '84-'85 is Dean of Lyman Briggs College and Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University. Her research specialty is theoretical particle physics. After completing her AB at Harvard University, Simmons earned an MPhil in physics at Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar. She returned to Harvard for her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship, and then spent a decade as a physics professor at Boston University. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a General Member and Officer of the Aspen Center for Physics. In 2005, she won the ACE Michigan Network's Distinguished Woman in Higher Education Leadership Award. Dr. Simmons lives in Michigan with her husband R. Sekhar Chivukula (SSP '78, SSP TA '83-'84) and their two children.

Dr. Thomas Y. Steiman-Cameron, Faculty '91-'92 is a senior scientist in the astronomy department of Indiana University and an associate of NASA Ames Research Center. He has also worked with or for UC Berkeley, Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz, the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. His research has included the distribution of dark matter in galaxies, galactic mergers and cannibalism, star formation, accretion-driven x-ray binaries, star formation, the interstellar medium and the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. Dr. Steiman-Cameron has a BS in Astrophysics from Indiana University, MS in Physics from Wichita State University, and PhD in Astronomy from Indiana University. In addition to his work, he has a passion for natural history, wildflowers, cooking, travel, and the role of science in society. He and his family live in Indiana.

Razvan Ungureanu '01, Faculty '05-'07 earned a BA in English at Rice University, and then a law degree at the University of Utah. In between, he taught Chemistry and Physics at Gustine High School in California. Razvan has worked as a summer associate for Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Salt Lake City, UT and for WilmerHale in Washington, DC. Currently, he practices civil litigation with Smyser, Kaplan & Veselka in Houston, TX.