Foundation Board
The role of the Foundation Board is to assist in Chabot’s fundraising effort through personal contributions and in-kind resources, and to help promote and build support for Chabot in the community.
The Foundation Board may have a total of 33 Directors which may include up to 11 Public elected Directors of the JPA Board.
Directors serve for a term of 3 years and there is no limitation to the number of terms a Director may serve.
Officers
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Eric Rudney, Chair
President, Rudney Associates
Eric Rudney is a registered investment advisor with over twenty eight years of experience in investment planning and asset management for high net worth and corporate clients. For the past three consecutive years, the East Bay Business Times ranked Rudney Associates among the top-10 largest wealth management firms in the East Bay. Additionally, in 2008 the Winners Circle named Eric the East Bay's best independent wealth management advisor. Eric supports and has served on the board of a number of local organizations that give back to the community and contribute to social change including BUILD, where he was Chairman of the Advisory Board, the Diablo Regional Art Association (former President and on the Board of Trustees), Las Trampas Inc. (Chairman Fundraising) and the Wheelchair Foundation. Eric is a graduate of UC Berkeley and attended CSU Hayward studying for his MBA Business/Finance.
Sheryl Gorchow Stuart, Vice Chair
Consulting Partner, Allotrope Ventures
Former administrator of the Weston Havens Foundation for medical and scientific research, Sheryl Gorchow Stuart has more than 15 years experience in non-profit philanthropy and development work in education and cultural institutions. An experienced fundraiser, Sheryl was a member of Caltech's senior development staff during the Institute's successful $1.4 billion campaign, overseeing the corporate and foundations departments and projects within CIT's Division of Physics, Math and Astronomy. She has worked at a range of educational institutions and museums, including the Claremont colleges, the Academy of Natural Sciences and The University of Pennsylvania's Museum. A mentor in her profession, Sheryl has lectured and taught in UCLA's Development Professional Certification Program. An active volunteer, she recently served as President of the Claremont Educational Foundation and on the Board of Oak Crest Institute of Science in Pasadena. She is married to Marc Stuart, and they have two children. The family relocated to the Bay Area in 2010.
John Spees, Treasurer
Founder and Managing Partner, Granite Capital Management
John Spees is a co-founder and a Managing Partner for Granite Capital Management, a Registered Investment Advisory and Wealth Management Firm located in the East Bay. The firm provides investment advisory services to individuals, families and small businesses.
Prior to starting Granite with a colleague in 2000, John spent 16 years trading fixed income securities and related derivatives for Bank of America and Security Pacific Bank, with his final 5 years a member of the Bank's proprietary risk taking unit. John is also a manager of and investor in Granite Investors LLC, a leveraged fixed income investment partnership organized to participate in the Federal Reserve's Term Asset Backed Loan Facility. He started his career as a consultant for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
John is married to an Oakland Public School teacher and he and his wife have 2 teenage children. He holds an MBA and BS from the HAAS School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in Finance.
Alexander Zwissler, Secretary
Executive Director/CEO, Chabot Space & Science Center
Alexander Zwissler is the Executive Director/ CEO of the Chabot Space and Science Center, a position he has held since April, 2007. Prior to joining Chabot, Zwissler was the Executive Director of the Fort Mason Foundation in San Francisco, California from 1999 to 2006. Zwissler was born in Stuttgart Germany then moved to California with his family. He was raised in Oakland and visited Chabot on a field trip as a grade school student. Zwissler attended public schools before going on to receive a B.A. in Political Science, with Honors, at the University of California at Berkeley. After graduating from Berkeley, Zwissler went on to become a Postgraduate Research Fellow at the Centre for Mass Communication Research at the University of Leicester, England, conducting research on the development of international satellite broadcasting. Prior to joining the Fort Mason Foundation in 1999, Zwissler had a 17-year career in the cable television and telecommunications industry and was Director of ComTel, the United Kingdom's fourth largest cable television and telephone company.
Zwissler serves in the leadership of both local and national non-profits, currently on the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Market Street Railway, Tau Kappa Epsilon at UC Berkeley, and the Non Profit Centers Network. He has also served on the Boards of the Oxfordshire Foundation, the Conejo Future Foundation, the San Francisco Business Arts Council, the National Park Service Friends Alliance and the American Southwest Theatre Company. In 2008, he was named an inaugural Fellow of the Noyce Leadership Institute.
Committee Chairs
Steve Lalli, Institutional Advancement, Audit
Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
Steve Lalli is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley in San Francisco heading the firm's Prime Brokerage and Equity Financing Products business in the western US. He and his team manage relationships for some of the top hedge funds globally, providing financing, business consulting and capital introduction services. Steve has been in the financial services industry for over 20 years, working previously as a technology investment banker for Goldman Sachs, UBS and Warburg Dillon Read. He also acted as an advisor to Craig McCaw on the FCC's auction of PCS licenses in the mid-1990s. Steve holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a BS with Honor in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and a BA in Physics from Pomona College, where he graduated magna cum laude.
John Spees, Finance
Founder and Managing Partner, Granite Capital Management
John Spees is a co-founder and a Managing Partner for Granite Capital Management, a Registered Investment Advisory and Wealth Management Firm located in the East Bay. The firm provides investment advisory services to individuals, families and small businesses.
Prior to starting Granite with a colleague in 2000, John spent 16 years trading fixed income securities and related derivatives for Bank of America and Security Pacific Bank, with his final 5 years a member of the Bank's proprietary risk taking unit. John is also a manager of and investor in Granite Investors LLC, a leveraged fixed income investment partnership organized to participate in the Federal Reserve's Term Asset Backed Loan Facility. He started his career as a consultant for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
John is married to an Oakland Public School teacher and he and his wife have 2 teenage children. He holds an MBA and BS from the HAAS School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in Finance.
Brian Rogers, Governance Co-Chair
Executive Director of the Rogers Family Foundation
Brian Rogers is currently the Executive Director of the Rogers Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization committed to improving student outcomes and creating educational systematic change in Oakland, CA. Under Brian's leadership, the Rogers Family Foundation has been the philanthropic leader of educational reform in the city of Oakland over the past seven years. Previous to his work at the Rogers Family Foundation, Brian was the Manager of the Lair of the Bear - Camp Gold, a family summer camp operated by the University of California at Berkeley Alumni Association. Other work experience includes being the managing partner of 7171 Co., a home development business, as well as teaching English and coaching tennis at Bishop O'Dowd High School, his alma mater. Brian is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (Haas B.S. 1995) and an avid fan of the Golden Bears. Brian lives in Orinda with his wife of six years, Katie, his two year old son, James, and his seven month old daughter, Brynn.
Sheryl Gorchow Stuart, Governance Co-Chair
Consulting Partner, Allotrope Ventures
Former administrator of the Weston Havens Foundation for medical and scientific research, Sheryl Gorchow Stuart has more than 15 years experience in non-profit philanthropy and development work in education and cultural institutions. An experienced fundraiser, Sheryl was a member of Caltech's senior development staff during the Institute's successful $1.4 billion campaign, overseeing the corporate and foundations departments and projects within CIT's Division of Physics, Math and Astronomy. She has worked at a range of educational institutions and museums, including the Claremont colleges, the Academy of Natural Sciences and The University of Pennsylvania's Museum. A mentor in her profession, Sheryl has lectured and taught in UCLA's Development Professional Certification Program. An active volunteer, she recently served as President of the Claremont Educational Foundation and on the Board of Oak Crest Institute of Science in Pasadena. She is married to Marc Stuart, and they have two children. The family relocated to the Bay Area in 2010.
Directors
Gary Bengier
Chairman, Bengier Foundation
Gary Bengier capped a career in financial and strategy roles for a variety of high tech companies in the role as eBay's Chief Financial Officer. From 1997 to 2001 he led the company's initial and secondary public offerings, which raised $1.5 billion in equity, and helped grow eBay merchandise sales to over $9 billion. While at eBay he also served as S.V.P. for Strategic Planning. Gary also served on the boards of Logitech, Inc. and Cobalt Networks. After 29 years in business, Gary now spends his time on travel, philanthropy, board and committee activities, his family, and on the study of philosophy, mathematics, and astrophysics. He is Chairman of the Bengier Foundation, serves on the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, and is on the Board of Trustees of the Exploratorium.
Bill Bruner
Director, Government & External Relations, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Mr. Bruner is the Director of Government and External Relations and responsible for strengthening Laboratory communications with all levels of government, the public, and other stakeholders. He oversees the Laboratory's Congressional Affairs, Public Affairs, and Protocol offices. Mr. Bruner has 25 years of experience in strategic communications, government affairs, strategic planning, and national security policy.
Prior to joining LLNL, Mr. Bruner was the Assistant Administrator for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Administration of President George W. Bush. Under Bruner's leadership, the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs managed NASA's relationships with the U.S. Congress, governors, state legislators and local governments.
Before his appointment at NASA, Mr. Bruner had a distinguished career in the United States Air Force. Among his decorations is the Bronze Star, awarded for service in the First Gulf War. He then served in several key positions in Washington - among them as a space and airpower expert on the Secretary of the Air Force's Staff Group; as a Military Fellow in the Office of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and as an Office Director within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he won the Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze Award for Excellence in International Security Affairs.
Mr. Bruner is a graduate of the National War College, the Air Force Fighter Weapons School, and the Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Power Studies - where his thesis topic was "National Security Implications of Inexpensive Space Access." He has earned master's degrees, with distinction, in National Security Strategy and Airpower Arts and Sciences. His bachelor's degree in Physical Science (Astronomy) is from San Francisco State University.
Sara A. Cherry
Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer, Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Sara Cherry joined PG&E Corporation in 2001 and has held positions of increasing responsibility in the Finance and Risk organizations at both the Utility and PG&E Corporation. She has served as the Director of Corporate Accounting at PG&E Corporation and as the Director of Management Reporting, Director of Utility Operations Business Planning, and most recently as Senior Director of Internal Auditing at Pacific Gas and Electric. Cherry oversees the Utility Finance organization, which provides business planning services to all functions in the enterprise as well as management reporting services, including financial and operational performance. She is also responsible for budget governance and the forecasting process. Prior to joining PG&E, Cherry held positions at Deloitte & Touche, Pacific Bell, and Gap, Inc. She holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and an MBA from Stanford University. She is also registered as a Certified Public Accountant in the state of California with inactive status.
Sandra R. Curtis, Ph.D.
Chief Innovations Officer, Mexican Heritage Corp.
Sandra R. Curtis, Ph.D. served as Senior Vice President for Zorro Productions for over twenty years. As head of Creative Development, she produced, created, and managed projects across media, including stage, television, film, publishing and brand licensing. Zorro Productions controls the worldwide trademarks and copyrights for the character of Zorro. The Olivier award winner, Zorro, the Musical, which premiered on London's West End in 2008 is currently running at the Folies Bergere in Paris. Sandra invited author Isabel Allende to write Zorro, a Novel, a literary back story for the character. She has recently branched off to produce independent media projects, several focusing on popularizing scientific exploration. Along with her creative endeavors, Sandra brings a love of science education to Chabot. She has developed curriculum materials in health science and physics at Lawrence Hall of Science during graduate school, later serving on the Hall's Advisory Council. She taught at UC Berkeley, where she received her Ph.D., and at San Francisco State. Sandy has served on commissions in the City of Berkeley and on numerous non-profit boards.
"Chabot Space & Science Center is uniquely positioned to ignite that spark of curiosity in our visitors about the cosmos. We have the potential to create spectacular moments of awe about the mysteries of our universe through dramatic visual exhibits, the planetarium, stargazing, our classes and other special events. The founders had incredible foresight in establishing Chabot which is a very valuable community resource. I'm eager to foster continuing development of innovative projects like Tales of the Maya Skies and am honored to be a member of the foundation board."
Glen Dahlbacka Ph.D.
Senior Program Manager, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Glen received his BS Physics from the University of Illinois and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Minnesota for experiments in Gamma Ray Astronomy. In 1972 he joined Lawrence Livermore National Lab as a Staff Scientist and for the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program and co-designed the first neutron producing laser fusion target at LLNL. In '76 he joined Physics International where he managed research on intense pulsed x-ray source development and x-ray lasers. From '82-90 he was proprietor of a consulting firm that developed high mach number gas injection hardware for laboratory x-ray laser research. In '90 at Maxwell Laboratories, as VP of Business Development, he promoted synchrotron light sources and their applications to industrial processes. When the Advanced Light Source came online at Berkeley Lab, he joined as the manager of Industrial Program Development in the Technology Transfer Department to bring industry to the ALS and from 99-08 he managed joint LBNL-industry programs in the Former Soviet Union funded by the DOE. He is currently working on final steps to commercialize vertical axis wind turbines developed under one of the Russian programs. He is a past member of the Livermore Planning Commission, the Livermore City Council and a founding member of the Board of Directors of Chabot Space & Science Center. He was also a leader in restoring the 1890 Historic Landmark First Unitarian Church of Oakland Building.
Benno Dorer
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer - Cleaning, International and Corporate Strategy, Clorox Corporation
Benno Dorer is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer - Cleaning, International and Corporate Strategy, Clorox Corporation. In this role, Dorer is responsible for the laundry, home care, and international businesses as well as corporate strategy and growth.
Prior to this, Dorer was named senior vice president - Cleaning Division and Canada in March 2011. In this role, he was responsible for U.S. retail for laundry (including Clorox® bleach, Clorox 2®) and home care (including Clorox® disinfecting wipes, Pine-Sol® cleaners, Formula 409® and Tilex® cleaners and other home care products), as well as the Brita® and Green Works® businesses. Dorer also had responsibility for the Canada business, which is now included in the Cleaning Division as a reporting business unit.
Dorer joined Clorox in 2005 as vice president - general manager, Glad® Products. Prior to that role, Dorer worked for 14 years at Procter & Gamble, where he held marketing positions across a range of categories, including laundry, home care, beauty care and paper products, in the United States and worldwide. Dorer holds a degree in economics from University of Freiburg in Germany and a graduate degree in business administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) from University of Saarbruecken, also in Germany. A German native, Dorer is multilingual and has lived in Germany, Scandinavia and Belgium.
Jerry Fiddler
Chairman, Solazyme; Principal, Zygote Ventures
Jerry Fiddler is the Chairman of Solazyme, Principal of Zygote Ventures and Founder of Wind River. Fiddler started Wind River in his Berkeley garage in 1981 along with fellow Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories software engineer David Wilner. Over the next 23 years, Fiddler steered the company to the global forefront of the embedded software industry. Wind River operating systems have guided each of NASA's Mars rovers, and the company flourished with operating systems for products ranging from digital cameras and DVD players to medical equipment and anti-lock brakes. Fiddler retired as Wind River's chairman in 2004.
"Technology and science is an exciting combination," said Fiddler. "That's what makes Chabot so compelling - and so important. There's not another institution that can lay claim to Northern California's only full-dome digital planetarium, the only research-quality telescopes regularly open to the public in the Western U.S. and dozens of cutting-edge interactive exhibits... all located in one of the most stunning natural settings in California."
Alex Filippenko, Ph.D.
Professor of Astronomy, Richard & Rhoda Goldman/Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences, UC Berkeley
Alex Filippenko Ph.D. joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1986, where he is a leading authority on exploding stars, active galaxies, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the expansion of the Universe. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences and one of the world's most highly cited astronomers, he is the recipient of numerous prizes for his research. UC Berkeley students have voted him the "Best Professor" on campus six times, and he was named the 2006 Carnegie/CASE National Professor of the Year among doctoral institutions. He has appeared in numerous television documentaries, produced introductory astronomy video courses with The Teaching Company, and coauthored an award-winning textbook.
G. Richard Fletcher
Executive Vice President & Chief Lending Officer, OnePacific Coast Bank
G. Richard Fletcher is Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer, OnePacific Coast Bank, an Oakland based community bank that focuses on economic and environmental sustainability. Prior to joining One PacificCoast Bank, Dick was a community bank executive with Tamalpais Bank and Westamerica Bank in northern California. Previously in his career, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Bank of America in various senior domestic and international positions. Dick's commitment to community development and sustainable technology extends to volunteer leadership as well. He serves as treasurer of the Investment Committee and a member of the board of trustees for EARTH University in Costa Rica, a leading global institution dedicated to sustainable agriculture and natural resource development. He also serves on the board of directors of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit organization with programs serving the needs of immigrant families and their communities in northern California.
Garrett Gruener
General Partner, Alta Partners
Garrett Gruener is a co-founder of Alta Partners, and was also a Partner at Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., which he joined in 1992. Gruener has more than two decades of experience in the fields of software development, systems engineering and corporate development. In 1982, he founded Virtual Microsystems, a successful communications software company that was later merged with a larger corporation. Garrett also founded Ask Jeeves, now Ask.Com, a leading Internet search engine which is now part of IAC. Garrett specializes in information technology and is on the board of directors of Aegis Lightwave, Ellie Mae, Nanomix and nCircle Network Security. Gruener earned a Masters Degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, San Diego, both in Political Science with a focus on technology policy.
Kevin Leader
Principal Vice President & Treasurer, Bechtel Group, Inc.
Kevin Leader is Principal Vice President and Treasurer at Bechtel Group, Inc. Kevin joined Bechtel in 2001 as Director of Corporate Finance and was appointed Treasurer in 2003. In addition to his role as Treasurer, he also oversees the coordination of project-specific banking matters, providing guidance and advice concerning banking and corporate finance issues to various Bechtel entities, operations, projects and joint ventures around the world. Prior to joining Bechtel, Kevin spent over 15 years in corporate banking, most recently as a Managing Director with Bank of America's Global Corporate and Investment Bank. Kevin has three children and lives in Oakland, California where he serves on the Board of Trustees and as Chair of the Development Committee for Bentley School. Kevin is also on the Corporate Advisory Board for Chabot Space & Science Center.
Dan Miller
Managing Partner, The Roda Group
Dan Miller is Managing Director of The Roda Group, a venture capital group focused on clean technology as well as information and communications services. Miller serves on the boards of several Roda Group companies including biofuel manufacturer Solazyme, and he was previously the president of Ask Jeeves, Inc., a former Roda Group affiliate company. He is also a member of the board of the Stupid Fun Club, game designer Will Wright's "entertainment think tank." Mr. Miller was Executive Vice President of TCSI Corporation, a company he co-founded with his Roda Group partner, Roger Strauch. TCSI (now owned by Rocket Software) is a leading provider of integrated software products and services for the global telecommunications industry. Prior to TCSI, Miller was a systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft's (now Boeing) Space and Communications Group where he was responsible for designing communications payloads for commercial communications satellites. He holds three patents in the areas of compression technology and wireless communications systems. In addition to Chabot, Miller serves on the nonprofit board of Climate Healers, and the advisory board of Cornell University's Computing and Information Science and School of Electrical Engineering. Dan is a member of The Climate Project, and has given talks about climate change at conferences across the nation. Miller received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, with distinction, from Cornell University and his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Rand Morimoto, Ph.D.
Founder & CEO, Convergent Computing
Rand Morimoto, Ph.D. is the Founder and CEO of Convergent Computing, a technology consulting firm Rand founded in 1986 that provides technology strategy consulting and implementation services to some of the largest corporations and government agencies headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Morimoto is known as a pioneer in architecting and implementing technologies that help organizations improve business efficiencies through their use of technologies that create a competitive advantage in their business operations. He has written over three dozen international bestselling books on topics ranging from internet security to electronic messaging to network communications. Dr. Morimoto served as a Y2K advisor to President Clinton, cyber-security advisor to the White House during the Bush Administration, and is a frequent guest speaker at keynotes, conferences and conventions around the world.
Bill Nye
Founder and CEO, Nye Labs, LLC
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
Bill's fascination with how things work led him to Cornell University and a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he headed for Seattle and work as an engineer at Boeing. It was in Seattle that Bill began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Eventually, Bill quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle's home-grown ensemble comedy show "Almost Live."
This is where "Bill Nye the Science Guy®" was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle's NBC affiliate. With fellow KING-TV alumni Jim McKenna and Erren Gottlieb, Bill made a number of award-winning shows, including the show he became so well known for, "Bill Nye the Science Guy."
While working on the Science Guy show, Bill won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five kids' books about science, including his latest title, "Bill Nye's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs."
Bill Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. "The 100 Greatest Discoveries" airs on the Science Channel. "The Eyes of Nye" airs on PBS stations across the country and Bill's latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called "Stuff Happens."
Bill's association with Chabot began when he agreed to partner with them on the development of their new, eponymously named climate exhibit, Bill Nye's Climate Lab, which recently opened at Chabot to great acclaim. Bill joined the Foundation Board of Directors of Chabot in January 2011.
Bill Nye is a graduate of Cornell with a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He holds three Honorary Doctorate degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Goucher College, and Johns Hopkins. He has delivered commencement addresses at the University of California Santa Barbara, RPI, Goucher, Hopkins, Harvey Mudd College, and Caltech.
Bill is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world's large space interest organization.
Ed Penhoet, Ph.D.
General Partner, Alta Partners
Edward Penhoet, Ph.D. is General Partner, Alta Partners. Ed served as dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1981, he co-founded Chiron Corporation and served as its chief executive officer until 1998. For 10 years prior to founding Chiron, Ed was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department of U.C. Berkeley. Ed currently serves as the vice chairman of the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee which oversees the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created by the passage of Proposition 71, the stem cell initiative. Penhoet is a member of the board of trustees of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, serving as president from 2004 - 2007. He has received numerous awards, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Outstanding Philanthropist award, the first Distinguished Faculty Award in the Life Sciences from the department of Molecular and Cell Biology at U.C. Berkeley, the Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year Award presented by Ernst & Young and Inc. Magazine, and the Harvard Business School Northern California Alumni Chapter award as Entrepreneur of the Year. Ed has served as chairman of the California Health Care Institute, of the Chabot Space & Science Center, and of the San Francisco Bay Area Bioscience Center. Ed sits on the boards of Zymogenetics, Scynexis, Metabolex and Renovis, Inc. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists, Ed has published more than 50 scientific articles and papers. He earned his A.B. in biology from Stanford University, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego.
George Smoot, Ph.D.
Professor & Nobel Laureate, UC Berkeley & Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
George Smoot, Ph.D. is a Professor and Nobel Laureate, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from MIT. Smoot shared the 2006 Nobel Prize for physics with John C. Mather, a NASA scientist who collaborated with Smoot in studying the early formation of the universe, work that helped further the big-bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. In 1992, when they announced their findings to the world, it was heralded by astrophysicists as "finding the Holy Grail of cosmology" and spawned new cosmological studies of the formation of the universe. Smoot used his Nobel Prize money to create the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP which focuses on understanding the origin and evolution of the universe.
Currently he is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and since 2010, a professor of physics at the Paris Diderot University, France. In 2003 he was awarded the Einstein Medal.
In 2009, Smoot appeared as the final contestant on the last episode of the Fox television show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" He reached the final question, which he correctly answered, becoming the second person to win the one million dollar prize.
"The next generation of physicists will make discoveries about the cosmos that will advance our knowledge of how galaxies and solar systems are formed," said Smoot. "Chabot's programs plant the seeds in students who will ultimately build on our research to answer questions about how our universe began."
Harold Weaver, Ph.D.
Professor of Astronomy Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Harold F. Weaver, Ph.D. is Professor of Astronomy Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley. Weaver received his A.B. in Astronomy in 1940 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1942, both from UC Berkeley. Weaver grew up in California and studied as an undergraduate at Berkeley, where he also pursued graduate work incorporating research at Lick and Mount Wilson Observatories. After pursuing postdoctoral research at Yerkes Observatory and war work in Cambridge (Massachusetts) and Berkeley, Weaver was appointed to the staff of Lick Observatory. In 1951 he joined the faculty at Berkeley, where he later played a major role in founding the Hat Creek Radio Observatory and oversaw construction of its 85-foot telescope. His creation of the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley, helped transform the Astronomy Department, promoting a modern astrophysics, spaces sciences approach to astronomy now embodied in the Space Sciences Laboratory.
In addition to being a founder member of both the JPA and Foundation board at Chabot, Harold has also contributed in essential ways to the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and to UC Berkeley's oversight of the national labs. Harold and his wife, Cecile, have been married for over 60 years.