Senior Educational Specialist of CienciaPR

I currently serve as Senior Educational Specialist of CienciaPR, a nonprofit organization committed to​ ​the advancement of scientific careers, science communication, and education in Puerto Rico. In this​ ​position I am in charge of the coordination and evaluation of the Seeds of Success project. My roles​ ​on this project have been students​ ​mentoring, program planning and logistics, workshop coordination,​ ​report writing, and data collection, analysis and management. My formal education is in Molecular​ ​and Cell Biology and Science education research. As the first student in defends a hybrid thesis in​ ​science and education, I have incorporated wide interdisciplinary skills as​ ​data management,​ ​statistics, molecular biology techniques, communication, and qualitative and quantitative data​ ​analysis and interpretation into my research work.

My genuine commitment to education and research, had led me to run several STEM education​ ​projects and evaluations. Including, Science in Action Program, a program that incorporates​ ​dynamics, authentic research experiences and mentoring for students from K to 12, and PROUD​ ​center at Humacao, a center that is focused in​ ​inclusive excellence to provide and enhance student​ ​success in STEM. Through my research experience, I have learned that not only science education is​ ​vital for the next generation of scientist, but the integration of authentic science experiences and​ ​mentorship is the key to increase underrepresented students’ auto-conception, academic knowledge​ ​development, and perception of science.

Physicist, DIII-D, General Atomics

Dr. Kathreen Thome is an experimental research scientist for General Atomics on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego. At the nation’s largest tokamak, she is focused on developing steady-state plasma scenarios for fusion reactors. Dr. Thome has been with the DIII-D program since graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016 with a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics.

Physicist, Group Leader, Fusion Energy Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Dr. Cami Collins is a plasma physicist and group leader in the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is working on finding a solution to create and sustain a burning plasma needed for an economical fusion energy pilot plant.  Her specific research is focused on both experiments and simulations of energetic particles in tokamak fusion devices. Cami received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Montana State University-Bozeman in 2007 and her Ph.D. in plasma physics from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013.

Research Physicist, NASA

Dr. Beverly Kemmerer is a research physicist in the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations (GMRO) lab at Kennedy Space Center. She graduated from Florida Institute of Technology in 2013 with a B.S. in Astronomy/Astrophysics and in 2019 with a Ph.D. in Space Sciences. She started working at Kennedy Space Center in the GMRO lab in 2018 as a graduate student intern and was converted to a full time employee after receiving her Ph.D.

Dr. Kemmerer currently works on dust mitigation research and regolith simulant materials research. She is currently working on developing two instruments for plume-surface interaction measurements during a CLPS landing on the Lunar surface. The Millimeter Wave Doppler Radar (MWDR) will measure the velocity of regolith ejecta and the Dust Concentration Monitor (DCM) will measure the density of regolith particles in the ejecta plume,

Staff Data Scientist, Astronomer

Dr. Santona Tuli is a staff data scientist at Astronomer, where she builds data science and machine learning pipelines for Apache Airflow. Previously, she had been a doctoral researcher at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where she performed particle physics research at the Large Hadron Collider as a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration. She is highly passionate about scientific outreach and was featured in the 2019 IMAX movie “Secrets of the Universe”.

Santona received her B.Sc. in Physics from Trinity University in 2013 where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of California, Davis in 2019 for her doctoral thesis entitled “Quark Gluon Plasma and Cold Nuclear Matter Modification of Y States at sqrt(s_[NN]) = 5.02 TeV with the CMS Detector”

PhD. Candidate, Georgia Institute of Technology

Naia Butler-Craig, a native of Orlando, is working toward her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and is a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research fellow and GEM fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research involves characterizing the electron energy distribution function at the inner front pole cover of a magnetically shielded Hall-Effect Thruster with a centrally mounted cathode using Laser Thomson Scattering.

In between her pressing academic schedule, Butler-Craig also works to advocate for diversity in STEAM disciplines. She engages in public speaking events, volunteers with STEAM organizations, and virtually mentors students.

Butler-Craig has also built a large following online through her social media profiles and website. These outlets bring her advocacy work to life by offering a window into the life of a doctoral student in a laboratory, testimony and Q&A videos from her living room, and quick demonstration videos on a variety of aerospace engineering topics.   Naia Butler-Craig is also the recipient of the 2020 Modern-Day Technology Leader Award and 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 award for her outstanding performance in STEM.

Senior Project Engineer, Instrument Operations, i-STAT Alinity New Product Introduction, Abbott Laboratories

Hayin obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering with Electrical Concentration at The College of New Jersey. Hayin joined Abbott Point of Care as a software developer in 2014 and then transitioned into New Product Introduction in 2015.

Currently, she leads Class A efforts for Princeton Operations – consisting of Quality Operations, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing departments. Hayin also leads Manufacturing Software design release and deployment to production for the i-STAT Alinity Analyzer.

Through her time at Abbott, Hayin has been instrumental in carrying out successful projects that support process improvement and product sustainability.

Supervisor, Quality Assurance, Abbott Point of Care

Danielle is a Supervisor of Quality Assurance and she supports the manufacturing of the handheld Analyzer for blood testing that is made in Princeton.

She is involved in Supervising the release of product into Finished Goods, Incoming Inspection, Design Changes for Process Improvement in the manufacturing line, CAPA (Corrective Action/Preventive Action), Process Failure Mode End Analysis and more!

Her background is in civil engineering and has been with Abbott for 7 years. She started in New Product Introduction team and then transitioned into Quality Assurance. Danielle is Abbott’s Outreach Lead in Princeton and her passion for outreach in unmatched!

PhD Candidate, UC Irvine Physics and Astronomy

Genevieve DeGrandchamp is currently performing her doctoral thesis work on the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego, where she is developing a diagnostic to characterize fast ions in the plasma through high-frequency waves they excite. She first heard of nuclear fusion late in her college studies and was excited by the possibility that it could be used as a clean energy source. After completing her degree, she would like to continue to study magnetically confined fusion plasmas. 

She is in her fifth year of Ph.D. studies at the University of California, Irvine and received her B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2017.

Master's Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Zoe Fisher is currently working on her Master of Science in Fusion Materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned her Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Her research revolves around High Temperature Superconducting tapes, their degradation patterns when inside of a tokamak fusion reactor, and possible ways to heal this damage.

When asked why she is pursuing a career in STEM, or more specifically, Nuclear Science, she always has the same, super cheesy response: "Who doesn't want to save the world?" It is safe to say that Fisher is quite excited about clean energy, and she also happens to think plasma science is really cool.