Mason Space Day Speakers

Caelus Rocketry (formerly known as Project Caelus) is an aerospace nonprofit consisting entirely of high school students. Their goal is to design, build, test, and launch the first high schooler-built bipropellant liquid-fueled rocket to the edge of space while creating opportunities that introduce the community to the ever-growing aerospace industry and the importance of STEM education in an increasingly technological world. Through this project, they hope to show young people that it’s possible to do something that has never been done before and that there is no age threshold to exploring science and pushing technological boundaries.

Anamaria Berea is an associate professor of Computational and Data Sciences in the Department of Computational and Data Sciences. They also serve as an affiliate faculty member and super mentor for the Frontier Development Lab (FDL), affiliated with the SETI Institute. In addition, Berea is a research investigator and elected Scientist Representative for the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS), an affiliate of the Post-Detection Hub at the University of St. Andrews. She is  also a member of the International Astronautical Federation's Permanent SETI Committee and serve as Mission Head at the Interstellar Foundation. Berea holds dual PhDs in Computational Social Sciences (2012) and another in Economics (2010). A recipient of a NASA award, she led the ASPIRE One mission to the Moon. Her current research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and space sciences, with a particular focus on astrobiology. Berea's work includes computer simulations of human teams and habitats in extreme environments (such as the Moon and Mars), studies on universals of communication for deep space contexts, and the development of AI applications for detecting biosignatures and technosignatures.

Steve Dam is the President and Founder of the Systems and Proposal Engineering Company (SPEC Innovations), based in Manassas, VA. He has been involved with structured analysis, software development, and system engineering for over 45 years. He participated in the development of C4ISR Architecture Framework (now DoDAF), the Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA), and Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) architecture. He currently is applying system-engineering techniques to various DoD and DOE projects. Dam is the author of four systems engineering-based books, including his most recent: “Real MBSE: Model-Based Systems Engineering Using LML and Innoslate.” Dam has a BS degree in Physics from George Mason University and a PhD. in Physics from the University of South Carolina. Dam is also an INCOSE certified Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP). He is an AIAA Associate Fellow and member of the Systems Engineering Technical Committee and Digital Engineering Integration Committee. Dam is currently the President-Elect of the Lifecycle Modeling Organization and a longtime member of the LML Steering Committee.

Ferah Munshi works on studying the smallest and dimmest galaxies and uses them as laboratories to study the unseen: mysterious dark matter (DM) which dominates the universe around us. Munshi joined george Mason as faculty in the Fall of 2022, after four years as an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma.  She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her PhD from the University of Washington. Munshi, if not busy with her pugs and daughters, can be found reading lots of science fiction and fantasy novels. 

Rob Parks is an assistant professor at George Mason University in the Physics and Astronomy Department.  Parks also serves as the George Mason Observatory director and outreach director for the Mason Space Exploration Center (MSEC). He oversees the day-to-day observatory operations and coordinates the MSEC outreach programs. Parks obtained his BS in astronomy from the University of Florida in 1998 and acquired his PhD from Georgia State University in 2014. While his research interests are in young stellar systems, he focuses on education with 15+ years teaching experience.  Additionally, Parks is building a science communication YouTube channel called “Professor Parks” where he hosts astronomy lectures and conversations with folks who think the Earth is flat. 

Eliad Peretz is the deputy lead scientist for NASA’s Heliophysics Strategic Technology Office and a mission-instrument scientist in the Heliophysics Division at Goddard Space Flight Center. He serves as Deputy Principal Investigator for George Mason University’s Landolt mission. He also acts as the Project manager for the MeDDEA and the CANDLE instruments. As principal investigator of the ORCAS and deputy PI for the HOEE mission concept, Peretz continues to push the frontiers of Astrophysics and heliophysics; his ORKID camera at the W. M. Keck Observatory still holds the record for the sharpest visible-light images ever taken from any single telescope (in space and on the ground). Leading the development of multiple Solar, lunar, Martian, and deep-space instruments and spacecraft systems, Peretz holds a unique vantage point, allowing him to better shape the future of space exploration. NASA and the nation have recognized his contributions with the Exceptional Technology Achievement, Exceptional Engineering Achievement, Exceptional Achievement, and Early Career Achievement Medals, the Robert H. Goddard Award, and its Early Career Excellence Award, among many others.  

Peter Plavchan is an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University and the Executive Director of George Mason Observatories. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Missouri State University and a research scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute. His research focuses on exoplanets around low-mass stars, specializing in precise radial velocity techniques at near-infrared wavelengths. He discovered the AU Mic planetary system, published in Nature in 2020. Currently, Plavchan is PI of the NASA Landolt mission and the HaZE mission concept. He has built instrumentation for the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and uses ground-based telescopes worldwide and in space with the Spitzer, Kepler, TESS, and James Webb Space Telescope missions.

Bob Weigel has been a professor at George Mason University since 2006. His research interests include magnetospheric physics and geomagnetism, solar wind/magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling, inverse methods for magnetospheric modeling, nonlinear dynamics, decision theory applied to rare event forecasting, scientific visualization, and large-scale time-series databases. He has been the Director of the Space Weather Laboratory at George Mason since 2011. He received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000.