Jeneé Osterheldt is a culture columnist who covers identity and social justice through the lens of culture and the arts. She centers Black lives and the lives of people of color. Sometimes this means writing about Beyoncé and Black womanhood or unpacking the importance of public art and representation. Sometimes this means taking systemic racism, sexism, and oppression to task. It always means Black lives matter. She joined the Globe in 2018. A native of Alexandria, Virginia and a graduate of Norfolk State University, Osterheldt was a 2017 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, where her studies focused on the intersection of art and justice. She previously worked as a Kansas City Star culture columnist.
Museum of Science
Jay V. Haigler
New England Aquarium
Paul M. Sutter is a theoretical cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and a guest researcher at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in NYC. He is an award-winning science communicator, having authored two books, Your Place in the Universe and How to Die in Space, and hosting several TV shows, including How the Universe Works, Space Out, and The Edge of Knowledge. He also writes and hosts his own Ask a Spaceman podcast, which has been downloaded over 7 million times. Lastly, Sutter is a globally recognized leader in the intersection of art and science. His latest collaboration is a production with Syren Modern Dance that explores the nature of time, which he recently performed as a United States Cultural Ambassador at the World Expo in Dubai. Find out more at pmsutter.com.
Museum of Science
Dr. Tomas Villalón has dedicated his life to solving the issues of the mining and metals industry. He received his PhD Boston University, and BSc from MIT, going on to co-found Phoenix Tailings in 2019 with a mission of building the world’s first fully clean mining and metals production company. Tomas is an expert in the sustainable extraction of critical minerals from tailings and environmentally responsible rare earth refining.
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Boris Martin Boris believes that every engineer today can play a role in helping humanity heal and adapt to climate change, and that profound impact happens when engineers embrace their own acts of generosity as a journey of personal transformation. Boris is the CEO of Engineers Without Borders USA. His personal commitment to building positive, respectful, and mutually accountable partnerships across the world mirrors EWB-USA’s long-term commitment to communities that have allowed the organization to understand the deep complexities and nuanced challenges that resilient infrastructure can address. Perhaps above all, Boris is proud to contribute to EWB-USA’s global impact projects that provide reliable access to safe water, renewable energy, nutritious food, and improved economic opportunities for thousands of underserved communities across the USA and around the world. His commitment is to make EWB-USA a leading Community Engineering organization and a catalyst and partner for Community Engineering around the world. Dr. Chris Lombardo Dr. Lombardo is currently employed at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in Electrical Engineering. His teaching focuses on electronics, engineering design, and the intersection of engineering and human centered design with a focus on low resource settings. Dr. Lombardo began volunteering with EWB-USA in 2004 and has been an active volunteer ever since. He serves as the faculty advisor of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences chapter of EWB-USA and has held numerous leadership roles both locally and nationally including the Curriculum Chair of the EWB-USA/ASCE Global Leadership Program, Faculty Leadership Committee, and is a former member and Past President of the EWB-USA Board of Directors.
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Jasmin Graham, shark scientist and president and CEO of Minorities in Shark Sciences
New England Aquarium
Leading white shark expert Dr. Greg Skomal and science writer Ret Talbot
New England Aquarium
Dr. Fiamma Straneo, Professor of Oceans and Climate and co-director of the Scripps Polar Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego
New England Aquarium
Suzanne Simard
Boston College - Gasson 100
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet. She is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy where she leads and coordinates the organization’s scientific efforts. Her areas of expertise include science communication, greenhouse gas emission, and developing and applying high-resolution climate projections for assessing regional to local-scale impacts of climate change on human systems and the natural environment. She holds a BSc in physics from the University of Toronto and an MS and PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois and has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including four honorary doctorates and being named a United Nations Champion of the Earth. Rev. Mariama White-Hammond was appointed as Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space in April 2021. In this role, she oversees policy and programs on energy, climate change, food justice, historic preservation, and open space. Over the course of her time with the City, she has supported the amendment of the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) to set carbon targets for existing large buildings and convened a city-led green jobs program. Rev. Mariama was born and raised in Boston and began her community engagement in high school, mostly pointedly with Project HIP-HOP (Highways Into the Past - History, Organizing, and Power), a youth organization focused on teaching the history of the Civil Rights Movement and engaging a new generation of young people in activism. After college, she became the Executive Director of Project HIP-HOP, where she served for 13 years. In 2017, she graduated with her Master of Divinity at the Boston University School of Theology and was ordained an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 2018, she founded New Roots AME Church in Dorchester where she currently pastors. Rev. Mariama uses an intersectional lens in her ecological work, challenging folks to see the connections between immigration and climate change or the relationship between energy policy and economic justice. She has received numerous awards, including the Barr Fellowship, the Celtics Heroes Among Us, The Roxbury Founders Day Award, and the Boston NAACP Image Award. She was selected as one of the Grist 50 Fixers for 2019 and Sojourners 11 Women Shaping the Church. David Sittenfeld serves as Director for the Center for the Environment at the Museum of Science, Boston. Dr. Sittenfeld has been an educator at the Museum for approximately 25 years, overseeing special projects and network-scale activities pertaining to issues that lie at the intersection of science and society. He served as principal investigator for the NOAA-funded Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities project and co-PI for the Science Center Public Forums project, which implemented community-based science-to-civics activities at 30 US science centers on extreme heat, drought, extreme precipitation, and sea level rise. David led the Wicked Hot Boston and Wicked Hot Mystic projects, which identified heat and air quality-related vulnerabilities in over 20 communities in and around Boston through community-engaged participatory science. David holds a Ph.D. from Northeastern University, where he researched participatory methods and geospatial modeling and visualization techniques about climate-related hazards.
Museum of Science
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