Crew Selection

George Whitesides Headshot
George Whitesides is the Chair of the Space Advisory Board for Virgin Galactic.  He was the company’s first CEO, and over the course of ten years brought the company to successful spaceflight operations and a public listing on the NYSE.  He served as the Chief of Staff for NASA under President Obama and Administrator Charlie Bolden.  He serves on advisory councils for Caltech, Princeton, and the Giant Magellan Telescope. He is committed to opening space for the benefit of all.
Caitlin O'Brien Headshot

Caitlin O’Brien is an undergraduate student at The Ohio State University majoring in Astrophysics & Astronomy and Physics. In 2019, she was named a Morill Scholar, recognizing her as a student engaged in diversity, leadership, and service. While working for the SciAccess Initiative she has contributed to numerous projects, including the SciAccess 2020 Conference— a virtual conference achieving over 1,200 registrants from 46 nations and all seven continents— and the SciAccess Zenith Mentorship Program (Zenith), which benefits blind and low-vision high school students. Caitlin helped to found Zenith and currently acts as Vice-President of the program. In addition to her work in outreach, she also serves as the President of the Astronomical Society at OSU, and a planetarium presenter at the Arne Slettebak Planetarium. She serves as co-lead of logistics on Mission: AstroAccess.

Brenda Williamson Headshot

Brenda Williamson is an undergraduate aerospace engineering student at UC San Diego. Her passion in the aerospace industry is to get the average person into outer space. She strives to promote the exploration and development of space and improve the quality of Earth and space travel as a whole while supporting sustainability and renewable energy sources. Outside of her coursework, she was the Chairperson of the AIAA Student Branch at UCSD and is now a board member and project manager in the Themed Entertainment Association at UCSD. She serves as co-lead of logistics on Mission: AstroAccess.

Sumant Jha Headshot

Dr. Sumant Jha is a geoscientist and geospatial modeling expert. He has over 20 years of national and international experience in geoscientific research which includes understanding earth’s tectonic activities which led to formation of rifts, mountains, and basins around the world. He has experience of working in both indoor (laboratory and office) and outdoor (remote field works on land and sea) environments and has experienced challenges involved in these settings for disabled students. He has been an active advocate for inclusion over the last several years and most recently was successful in getting CART services available for one of the geoscience conferences. Currently, he works at Apple as a geospatial expert during the day and advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion in geosciences whenever possible. Dr. Jha received his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences in 2019 at Colorado State University.