Featured Speaker: Alan Stern
Principal investigator of the New Horizons
Dr. Alan Stern is principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and former Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern is a planetary scientist, space program executive, consultant, and author. He is serving as an Associate Vice President at the Southwest Research Institute and has his own aerospace consulting firm. In 2007 and 2008, Alan served as NASA’s chief of all space and Earth science programs, directing a $4.4B organization with 93 separate flight missions and a program of over 3,000 research grants. During his NASA tenure, a record 10 major new flight projects were started and deep reforms of NASA’s scientific research and the education and public outreach programs were put in place. His tenure also featured an emphasis on cost control in NASA flight missions that resulted in a 63% decrease in cost overruns.
