B612 Leadership

Ed Lu is a former NASA astronaut who flew three space missions including six months on the International Space Station.From 2007-2010, he led the Advanced Projects group at Google, where his teams developed imaging technology for Google Earth/Maps, Google Street View, and energy information products including Google PowerMeter.He is the co-inventor of the Gravity Tractor, a spacecraft able to controllably alter the orbit of an asteroid. He has published scientific articles on high-energy astrophysics, solar physics, plasma physics, cosmology, and statistical physics. He holds a PhD in astrophysics from Stanford University, and a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Danica Remy serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the B612 Foundation. She comes to B612 from the Tides Network, where she served as Managing Director for nine years, responsible for all operations, information technology, facilities, human resources, finance, lobbying and governance functions across all Tides enterprises: Tides Foundation, Tides Center, Tides Advocacy Fund and Tides Shared Spaces.Previously she served as a senior executive at several organizations, including Vice President of Operations for Organic, an internet strategy firm; Vice President leading investments, acquisitions and web strategy and shared operations for Knowledge Universe, a $3 billion global education company; and Vice President of Product Development and Engineering for Inquisit, a business intelligence service. Additionally, Danica was Vice President for The WELL the pioneering online virtual community, and co-founded the Global Business Network.She began her career studying computer science and film. Danica serves on the Board of Directors and is Audit Committee Chair for Network for Good, which provides a scaled digital platform for charities around the world to empower giving; is a Director (and former Chair) for the Greenwood School; and is President for Point, former publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog in addition to serving on other nonprofit start-ups.

Diane Murphy leads B612 marketing, communications and education efforts, with a unique 30-year portfolio in public affairs, government, public relations, marketing and communications. She began her career as a press secretary in the US Congress, and went on to consult for more than 30 political campaigns. Subsequently, she served as Vice President of EADS North America; Senior Director for Northrop Grumman, and Vice President of SpaceX, as well as was an advisor to the Under Secretary of Energy, and to the Assistant Secretary General of NATO.She has founded two public relations firms, Federal City Communications and the Aquarius Group, representing clients in the fields of aerospace, defense, energy, technology, international relations, education, and film. Clients have included: Motorola, Iridium, BT Broadcast Services, Lockheed Martin, National Air and Space Museum, IMAX Corporation, Space Imaging, EOSAT, Northrop Grumman, INTELSAT, WorldSpace, Ibiquity Digital Radio, Army Times Publishing, Defense News and Space News, Masdar, Big Think, Rocket Racing League, and Singularity University. She is a member of the National Press Club and serves on the Board of Trustees of the X PRIZE Foundation, Youth Service America, and Dashew International Center for Students and Scholars at UCLA.

Scott Hubbard is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University where he focuses on planetary exploration, especially Mars and also serves as the Director of the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation. He has been engaged in space-related research as well as program, project and executive management for more than 35 years including 20 years with NASA, culminating as director of NASA’s Ames Research Center.He served as the sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board; was NASA’s first Mars program director and successfully restructured the entire Mars program in the wake of mission failures. He is the founder of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute; conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission with its airbag landing and was the manager for NASA’s highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission.Prior to joining NASA, Hubbard led a small start-up high technology company in the San Francisco Bay Area and was a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Hubbard has received many honors including NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. Hubbard’s new book titled, “Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery,” describes his work on NASA’s Mars Program.

Harold Reitsema is a planetary astronomer who specializes in designing space science missions that probe the solar system and beyond. While at the University of Arizona, he discovered satellites of Saturn and Neptune. He recently retired from Ball Aerospace, where he led design teams for Hubble Space Telescope instruments and numerous space missions. At Ball Aerospace, he served as Director for Science Mission Development, Civil and Operational Space.He was Principal Investigator for a NASA Planetary Instrument Design and Development contract for miniature focal plane development, Flight Project Manager of the Sub-millimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite instrument program; Lead Systems Engineer in support of science teams for several NASA science instrument programs; and Co-Investigator and Calibration and Data Processing Team lead for the GIOTTO mission that flew past Halley’s Comet in 1986.Dr. Reitsema received his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1972 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1977. From 1997 until 1982 he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Arizona, where he developed optical instruments and data systems that utilized emerging electronic imaging technologies for telescopic observations of solar system objects. During that period he led teams that discovered satellites of Saturn (Telesto) and Neptune (Larissa). His observations provided scientific guidance to several NASA space flight missions.Dr. Reitsema has a strong background in technology development, including infrared and visible light detectors, calibration and data analysis. He has published more than 50 papers in the areas of astronomy, planetary science and space missions including studies of asteroids and planetary satellites. Dr. Reitsema received a U.S. patent for the Optically Coupled Shaft Encoder. Asteroid 13327 Reitsema is named in recognition of his contributions to Planetary Science. He holds memberships in the American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Astronomical Union, and is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Ball Aerospace has designated John Troeltzsch as the Sentinel program manager, responsible for all Ball tasks required by the Sentinel contract and directing all efforts of subcontractors. A highly experienced aerospace manager and engineer, he has more than 28 years of program management, systems engineering, and software experience, and his career has spanned all program phases from contract initiation through launch and on-orbit operations. For Ball Aerospace, he has provided systems engineering solutions on the GHRS, COSTAR, and NICMOS Hubble Space Telescope instruments, including a role as the Mission Manager for the corrective optics instrument that repaired Hubble in 1994.John served as avionics lead and later Program Manager for the Ball built cryogenic instruments on the Spitzer Space Telescope deep space mission, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal from JPL. More recently, John managed the development and launch of the Kepler mission to find the prevalence of Earth sized planets in the habitable zone of stars in our galaxy, and remains the Program Manager on Kepler during its on-going flight operations phase. NASA awarded John a second NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal for his leadership on Kepler.

Karen Putnam is Vice President for Marketing and External Relations for the B612 Foundation. She has had a distinguished career in academic administration, civic and arts organizations, and wealth management. She began her career at Harvard University where her primary responsibility was the Campaign for the Fogg Art Museum. She went on to hold administrative and teaching positions at Bryn Mawr College; the University of Pennsylvania; the Open University in London, England; Yale University; and the Brooklyn Museum where she served as Vice Director responsible for development. Putnam subsequently became Vice President for Development, Marketing, and Public Relations at the Central Park Conservancy and, two years later, its President and CEO. Following the Conservancy, she became Principal and Director of Philanthropic Advisory Services and Family Wealth Stewardship at Bessemer Trust, In New York City. During that time she also served on professional Advisory Committees at The Rockefeller University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lincoln Center. Looking to return to the not-for-profit sector, she then served as Associate Dean for Advancement at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Drawn by the mission of the B612 Foundation she recently joined our team, working out of California and New York City.Putnam has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Wellesley College, and an MPhil and PhD in American Studies from Yale University. She is also the author of New York’s 50+ Best Places to Enjoy Central Park and other Green Retreats, published by Rizzoli and with an Introduction by Tom Brokaw.

Marc Buie has worked with world-class telescopes around the globe, from small portable telescopes in remote locations to large space based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope at the Space Telescope Science Institute.Through this work, he has studied smaller bodies in the solar system, including asteroids, comets, and the satellites of the giant planets. Dr. Buie also has had a deep and long-term interest in the study of the planet Pluto. His work includes many of the fundamental measurements regarding Pluto’s size, mass, density, albedo, surface composition, and he created the best maps to date of the surface of Pluto by using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Buie continues his interest in Pluto as a collaborator with the New Horizons mission and looks forward to a spectacular encounter with Pluto in 2015.Dr. Buie also has played a leading role in the Deep Ecliptic Survey, a survey with the Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo 4-m telescopes to discover and catalog objects near and beyond Pluto – and that team has made 1000 discoveries, roughly half of all those known to date. These discoveries are being used to find a Kuiper-Belt Object within reach of the New Horizons Mission, after its flyby of Pluto. Dr. Buie has also worked on numerous instrument development projects from the first spectrograph to the commission of a facility-class infrared imaging spectropolarimeter that is still in use today at the Lowell Observatory.Marc Buie received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in Planetary Science from University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He holds memberships in the American Astronomical Society including the Division for Planetary Sciences and the Division of Dynamical Astronomy and the International Astronomical Union. He has more than 80 peer-reviewed research publications and in 1999, asteroid 7553 Buie was named in his honor for his work on the study of our solar system.

Tom Gavin was appointed Associate Director for Flight Projects and Mission Success at JPL in May 2001. This was a new position created to provide the JPL Directors Office with oversight of the Flight Projects and the Mission Success organizations.Prior to that appointment he was Director of the Space Science Flight Projects Directorate that included the development of Genesis, Stardust, Mars 2001 Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers, SPITZER and GALEX Projects. In June 1990 he was appointed Spacecraft System Manager for the Cassini Mission (currently in orbit of Saturn) and remained in that position until the successful launch of Cassini 1997Mr. Gavin received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal in 1981 for his work on Voyager, NASA’s Medal for Outstanding Leadership in 1991 for Galileo and in 1999 for Cassini. Mr. Gavin received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 2004 in recognition of outstanding and sustained engineering and management contributions to space exploration, and the American Astronautical Society 2005 Randolph Lovelace II Award for leading the management, design, and operations of all JPL and NASA robotic scientific spacecraft missions since from 2001 until retirement in 2009. He received NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2007 for his leadership in the development of NPR 7120.5, a policy document that affects all of NASA’s space flight missions. In 2009 he received a second Distinguished Service Medal for his contributions to NASA.Mr. Gavin received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Villanova University in Pennsylvania in 1961.