Ambassadors

Brandon Rodriguez is the Educator Professional Development Specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With a background in chemistry, Brandon worked as a research scientist for several years, making bio-plastics for the Dow Chemical Company before finding a passion for education. He shifted his career away from the private sector and into the classroom via teaching seven years of high school and college chemistry and physics. He then extended his teaching role to preparing preservice teachers by teaching graduate-level education courses, assisting future teachers bring engaging science to their own classrooms. This led him to a position in the Education Department at JPL in Pasadena, CA. In his role, Brandon gets to live in ‘both worlds’, performing research in young stellar object formation via IR astronomy and flying on NASA’s SOFIA, while also writing curriculum and leading professional development for K-12 educators.

During his seven years at JPL and alongside his incredible team, he has conducted hundreds of workshops for students and teachers around the country, organized the televised programming for the Perseverance landing in 2021, and published dozens of classroom activities for educators everywhere.

Brandon is an avid traveler, having visited over 40 countries and all seven continents. As a loud advocate for nerd culture, his happiest moments are spent reading science fiction, watching Star Trek with his colleagues, and eagerly plotting his next Dungeons and Dragons session.

Elainie Huncik is the Program Coordinator of Outreach at OH WOW! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology in Youngstown, Ohio. She completed a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics/Astronomy with minors in Mathematics and Geosciences at Youngstown State University (YSU), where she discovered her passion for science communication through her work at YSU’s Ward Beecher Planetarium. At the planetarium, she assisted with shows, spoke in the “Keep Looking Up” livestream, assisted with the production of videos, and presented about engaging young planetarium audiences at the Great Lakes Planetarium Association conference. She was also a TA for astronomy classes, a tutor, and a recipient of the NASA/OSGC Education Scholarship. As the secretary of YSU’s chapter of Society of Physics Students (SPS), she helped with organizing events to facilitate student and public interest in physics and astronomy, which earned YSU’s chapter the Outstanding Chapter Award from SPS National. In her position at OH WOW!, she is responsible for developing activity kits that align to STEM learning standards, communicating STEM through outreach to K-12 schools, and working with community partners to coordinate enrichment programs for schools in underserved communities. She also appears on Youngstown’s local news channel every week for OH WOW!’s segment, in which she is known as “Miss Elainie” (miscellany) because she uses miscellaneous items to demonstrate science concepts. Elainie is involved in her community as a member of the Mahoning Valley Astronomical Society and the Gardeners of Greater Youngstown, and she volunteers at local community theaters. She even shares her passion for astronomy in a social setting by inviting new friends to observe at a dark sky site.

Denise Wright is a STEM Educator in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She is passionate about public outreach and volunteers for NASA as a Solar System Ambassador.  Denise was one of the first teachers in her state to use a historic 1926 12 ⅜ Alvan Clark Refracting telescope, in K12 Distance Learning environment with the South Carolina State Museum. She is a member of the IAU Astronomy Educator’s Team for the United States,  National Science Teaching Association, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the International Society of Technology Education. She was one of the founders of her local amateur astronomy group, Grand Strand Astronomers and she created AstroSTEM club which exposes students to STEM, astronomy, and coding.  AstroSTEM has participated in the academic STEM competition, Ecybermission, sponsored by the Army Education Outreach Program, and has ranked as National Finalists in 2021 and 2022.  She has written many educational STEM grants,  enjoys infusing technology into her classroom, and has written several journal articles for the National Science Teachers Association, Science Scope Magazine. Denise has presented at K12 space education conferences for teacher professional development,  throughout the United States and internationally (Space Educator’s Explorers, National Science Teaching Association, Shaw-IAU Workshop for Astronomy Education, and Astronomical Society of the Pacific) . She has received awards for her excellence in teaching from the National STEM Scholars Program, Computer Science Technology Association, and was a former nominee for National Online Teacher of the Year.  She is honored to be a part of the ACEAP team!

David Thesenga has been teaching physics, chemistry, and the earth/space sciences for 22 years to both middle- and high-school students in Pasadena, New York, Chicago, and Boulder,  Colorado. Hiking into the remote wildernesses of North America has afforded him with opportunities to wonder at the night sky.  A 2018 NAGT Outstanding Earth Science Educator, that childhood wonder is translated to his classroom subjects by teaching through the lens of astronomy, solar system exploration, and exobiology to excite and engage students.  With an original interest in glaciology, David earned his BS in Geology/Geophysics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and shifted to the mining industry in Cripple Creek, Colorado. After leaving mining, he earned his Masters of Science in Teaching from Boston College and never looked back. He has been a curriculum developer for the 7-10 Project of the California PreCollege Science Initiative (CAPSI) at the California Institute of Technology, a faculty associate for math and science teacher preparation at Claremont Graduate University, and a past-editor of The Earth Scientist, the journal of the National Earth Science Teachers Association. He was named an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator and worked for the National Science Foundation in the Directorate of Geosciences focusing on 3D printing of topographical concepts and assisting in the reimagining of the GLOBE program’s teacher professional development and, most recently, a PolarTREC teacher/researcher working to understand glacial flow dynamics within the shear zone of Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. 

Matthias Matting is an author and science journalist from Germany. The first thing he can consciously remember was people in strange suits stomping around on the moon. Since then, he has been so drawn to space that he would have loved to become an astronaut. That didn’t work out- at least not yet. So Matthias first studied physics and graduated with a diploma, then he started to bring the fascination of science to other people as a science journalist and author. As a journalist, he oversees the German-language edition of the popular space magazine ALL ABOUT SPACE. For research purposes, he has, among other things,participated in a simulated Mars landing in the desert of Oman, experienced weightlessness on board a research aircraft or visited the European space port in French Guyana. The physicist gives lectures on cosmology and astronomy at trade shows and comic cons and other events. In 2020, he started a part-time additional education to become a “Master of Space Science” at the International Space University (ISU). As a writer, under the pen name of Brandon Q. Morris, he publishes award-winning hard science fiction novels with a focus on accurately portrayed science that have sold millions of copies and are published worldwide in six languages. At night, he observes the sky with his own telescope. At his own space blog, hard-sf.com, he regularly writes about new scientific discoveries by astronomers world-wide. He is a member of the Mars Society and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). Matthias speaks English, Spanish, French, and his native language, German.

Emily Lehnardt first “gravitated” toward the exciting world of space exploration during a high school lecture about black holes. From that moment, she has actively pursued anything space related. As a NASA/JPL Ambassador, Emily has shared her passion of space to libraries, schools, and clubs. For example, she recently collaborated with NASA Johnson Space Center at the Utah STEM Fair which had over 14,000 students and teacher attendees. NASA featured research from her students on how space affects tomato seeds aboard the Space Station. Recently, she developed high school curriculum for the First Seed Foundation which oversees the Tomatosphere project in the US.

Not only does she share her love of space with her community, she also shares it with her students. Specifically, Emily is busy advising her after-school STEM club, leading a MESA club for 6th, 7th and 8th graders at her junior high school where she teaches 6th grade science. She also created and advised a Girl Scout STEM troop. Additionally, Emily was awarded Teacher of the Year at her school in 2017, and she recently received her NASA Endeavor STEM Leadership Certification.

The most endearing collaboration was with the Make A Wish Foundation. A young boy with cancer wished to star gaze, and he chose to come to her STEM club. He eagerly learned all about constellations that he would see in Moab, Utah. He left with a twinkle in his eye. Emily left with tears in hers.