Samantha Lynne Snabes
Katy Lynne Jeremko
Katy Jeremko is studying Industrial and Interaction Design, as well as Information Management and Technology at Syracuse University. Currently, Katy works for NASA’s Open Government Initiative with a group of talented people from many disciplines. In her free time, she draws people and takes things apart to understand how they’re made.
As a challenge seeker and continuous learner, Samantha is passionate about human space exploration and social impact. Currently, she serves as the Social Entrepreneur In Residence for the NASA Open Government Initiative. Her professional and extracurricular experiences include biotechnology, social innovation, small business start-up & acquisition, product engineering, emergency response, communications & strategy, microfinance, and agricultural & animal husbandry. Samantha holds a BS in Biology, BA degrees in International Relations and Hispanic Studies, a MBA with concentrations in Supply Chain Management and International Business, and certifications as a Firefighter and EMT-B.
Matt Stringer
Matt Stringer is a graduate of Texas A&M and currently pursuing his masters in Earth and Energy Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating from Texas A&M, he spent three years in the Peace Corps serving in El Salvador and Guatemala where he worked alongside various local and international organizations implementing projects in food security and health care. After Peace Corps, Matt returned to Texas to pursue a career at a tech company coordinating funding for academic research for various universities throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. He is fluent in Spanish and most definitely tuned to the cultural implications of working with emerging markets.
TEAM
Carolina Yufla is a community member from the Altiplano region of Chile. Ms. Yufla is a certified tour guide and chair of the Science-based Tourism Committee established by a cross regional group of indigenous community members in 2012 with the goal of developing improved services to the II Region. The business is envisioned as a tight coupling between cutting edge research on energy, water, mineral, and environmental resources and tourism operations by indigenous community members. The 3D 4D Challenge project extends a collaborationcreates collaborationss withwith the research community to implement the primary steps for creating a capacity building center that will offer technical training and introduce a tour guide certification program. The business model provides an introduction to technical skills, such as 3D design and computational programming design for maintaining a cyberinfrastructure system, with the aspiration of producing educational souvenirs and science-tourism as well as supporting the creation of capital to implement future ventures in indigenous owned energy cooperatives and environmental resource monitoring.
Carolina Yufla
Suzanne A. Pierce is a Research Assistant Professor with the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy in the Jackson School of Geosciences and Assistant Director of the Digital Media Collaboratory in the Center for Agile Technology at The University of Texas at Austin. A trained hydrogeologist with a focus on participatory deliberation, Dr. Pierce has prior professional background as a Scientist with Sandia National Laboratories and as the Environmental Manager for one of the world’s largest metals mines in northern Chile. Dr. Pierce has built a record of research achievement and her research has garnered recognition at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Our projects leverage Dr. Pierce's existing collaborations with members of the indigenous communities of the Atacama Desert to build technical capacity and link communities to the scientific knowledge about the region.
Suzanne A. Pierce
Matthew Fiedler was fortunate to grow up on a farm in rural Iowa with nine intelligent and diverse siblings and early childhood desires to explore human health, aeronautics and engineering. Matthew has earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree from the University of Nebraska in Manufacturing, Engineering and Biomechanics. He has been working for the past five years as a Biomedical Engineer in the Neuroscience Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. Mr. Fiedler is also an active member of the Engineers Without Borders - Johnson Space Center chapter where he has recently returned from a solar dryer implementation trip at the L’Esperance orphanage in Rwanda and he also serves at the chapter's Webmaster. Matthew maintains a dedicated interest to farming and rural affairs through the family farm and his own garden, to manufacturing through his own well-equipped machine shop and 3-D manufacturing lab and to human health as a PhD student in Kinesiology and motor control at the University of Houston.
Matthew Fiedler
Sheilagh O’Hare
Ms. O’Hare performs research and analysis for the University XXI program at The University of Texas at Austin. In addition to analysis, business, and marketing skills, she has written and produced short films for research projects. Her current efforts support the US Army Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4) program through documentation and testing. She has led a team of software developers, artists, and designers on formulating training courseware for the United States Army, as well as leading PhD students in developing a methodology for transforming the US Air Force's Squadron Officer School at Air University in Montgomery, Alabama into a blended learning course. Ms. O’Hare also has extensive experience in technical troubleshooting and knowledge base development. She holds a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Technology Commercialization, both from The University of Texas at Austin.
Chris Gerty
As an explorer for NASA and aspiring maker, Chris wants technology to work for us, not against us in our day-to-day lives. He sees a future where humans live comfortably on and off our home planet, yet push the frontiers even when the path is uncomfortable. With over fifteen years of experience working on complex, technology intense project, he currently serves on the openNASA team, exploring how open technology practices can help further human spaceflight.
