Alphabetical Listing, and biographies:

Steve Blumenthal holds degrees from Course 6 and completed the Sloan School's Greater Boston Executive Program in 1991. At MIT, he was a teaching assistant for 6.014 (Electrodynamics) and 6.015 (Signals and Systems). Afterwards, he spent a year at the University of Rochester Medical School and taught a course on Real Time Computing and Digital Signal Processing for biomedical graduate students and researchers.

Steve joined Bolt Beranek and Newman, an R&D consulting company, in Cambridge, MA in 1977. He spent a few years working on underwater acoustics projects with an emphasis on sensors, digital signal processing, and systems integration. In the early 1980s, he shifted his interests to data communications and worked on a number of R&D projects related to the development of the Internet. Specifically, he worked on projects related to packet switching over satellites, the development of Internet Routers, TCP/IP protocol software, and voice and video conferencing over the Internet. At BBN, he moved from being an engineer to a manager, eventually becoming a senior vice president and head of the networking R&D division.

In 1996, he shifted his career again, as BBN decided to focus on the Internet as a business. His group had been building and running networks for some time, including the NSFnet regional network in New England (NEARnet) and AOL's dial up network. He moved out of R&D and became the head of engineering for BBN's Internet services business. They built out a nationwide Internet backbone, developed new innovative services such as web hosting and Internet security services, and became one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the US. In 1997, BBN was acquired by GTE and Steve's group built GTE's global fiber optic network. When GTE was acquired by Bell Atlantic in 2000 to form Verizon, the Internet service business was spun out as Genuity. Today, he is still with Genuity serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

Steve thinks that he can help Mission 2006 students through his technical knowledge of communications systems, sensors, and signal processing, which could be applicable to the data collection aspect of the project. Throughout his career, he has been involved in the analysis and solution of complex problems, and he feels that this ability is one of the most powerful lessons he learned at MIT

Sheldon Buck is an aeronautical engineer who specializes in the development of aerospace control systems and geophysical instrumentation. His expertise is in aerospace engineering with an emphasis on missle guidance systems and aircraft and helicopter control.

As a member of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory which became the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory 1959 until present, he worked on the Atlas, Titian 2, Minuteman, MX / Peacekeeper, Polaris, Posidon, and Trident Missile Programs. Sheldon has experience as both an airplane and helicopter pilot trained at Pan American World Airways and Hanscom Field. He worked at MIT in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences from 1968 to 1973 on geophysical instrumentation design.

Buck served as technical director for the Lunar Traverse Gravimeter Experiment flown December 1972 on the Apollo 17 flight, and he was a member of the Apollo 17 EVA Team at NASA Mission Control during the flight. After working for many years at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, he retired in 2000.

Sheldon's hobbies include radio controlled airplanes, boats, cars, and helicopters as well as movie collecting. His wife, Diane, is an antique doll collector. His son Steve is working as an actor living in New York City. Steve had a supporting role in the recently released movie "Jesus' Son." He and his wife have two Welch Corgis at home. This is his second tour of duty as a 12.000 mentor, having served for Mission 2004.

Ed Burke acts as a consultant to computer and communications startups. He has teaching experience at the University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University in Computer Science. Ed spent 12 years at MITRE working with government agencies on large projects; his group did the seminal work on computer security that led to the "orange books". He worked on large networks for photographic image exploitation, the (relatively) new consolodated fingerprint ID system for the FBI, and on numerous computer and communication problems around the world.

Ed also spent 9 years with Data General and 10 years with various companies working in product development. Over the past 10 years, he has held senior management positions in high-performance computing, network technology, and storage management systems. Presently he consults for startups in the areas of wireless applications and collaborative software.

Winslow Burleson's Masters thesis at Stanford University was on canopy access technologies, focusing on living and working in the canopy of the rainforest. Since then, he has developed several educational and interactive exhibits for museums on rainforest issues, including a virtual canopy climb.

Win also taught the introductory mechanical engineering course at Stanford on visual thinking, brainstorming, and team projects. This is his second tour of duty as a 12.000 mentor, having served for Mission 2005.

John Carrier has a strong interest in the environment, having worked for three and one-half years at an MIT-based environmental startup company. He is also a co-founder of a company with a new technology for recycling crumb rubber more efficiently using natural gas. In the course of his career, he has learned the importance of strong organizational, communication, and team skills, and he hopes to encourage Mission 2006 students to develop and employ such skills in order to structure their project and communicate the final results.

Peter Cheimets is a project engineer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. His specialties include mechanical design, the development of dynamic control systems, complex project management, and just plain problem solving.

He has spent time exploring the Galapagos and the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica. This is his second tour of duty as a 12.000 mentor, having served for Mission 2005.

Dave Decaprio works in Kendall Square as a commercial software developer. His specialties include speech recognition, internet collaboration, and supply chain management. He has experience with web technologies and also with managing teams. His current position as chief integration architect at i2, a 4000 person software company, often puts him in situations that involve gaining consensus between multiple groups that are geographically dispersed and have differing goals.

Other experience of interest includes signficant travel through developing countries in South America, Africa, and Asia.

Ari Epstein has a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program. His thesis work had a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research in physical/biological interactions, so he feels comfortable helping students to analyze problems related to fluid flows and their environmental effects. Ari also has a good deal of experience in working with interdisciplinary, project-oriented teams.He has assembled and led a number of exhibit-development teams at the New England Aquarium, where he brought together scientists, designers, educators and others.

Most recently, Bob Gurnitz has been Chairman of Envirosource, Inc., a supplier of recycling and landfill services to steel mills and other industrial sites. Previous management apppointments were with Northwestern Steel and Wire, Webcraft Technologies, Bethlehem Steel, and Rockwell International. He has three degrees (S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering) from MIT. Hobbies include sailing, skiing, fishing, traveling, and reading.

Todd Harland-White's work has involved designing and building manned and unmanned systems operating in the deep sea. Unlike terrestrial engineers, ocean engineers have few opportunities to change the environment. As a consequence, learning to understand, accept, and work with (and around!) the existing environment is an important skill.

Many rainforest environments, like underseas environments, are remote, without power and communication, and far enough away from civilization to preclude the rapid arrival of outside assistance. Things will go wrong - it's just a question of how adaptable your designs are to the problems that arise. And, as in the rain forest, the underseas world is teeming with life both strange and fragile, benign or damaging, and always unexpected.

Harland-White's company, Northrop Grumman, has expertise in sensor systems both placed within the environment and operated from remote locations - either airborne or in space - that may be of assistance in the development of Mission 2006 designs. This is his second tour of duty as a 12.000 mentor, having served for Mission 2005.

For almost 19 years, Jim Harrison has been an environmental scientist with the the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Regional office in Atlanta, GA, which covers eight Southeastern states.He has a total of 22 years experience in the field of water quality.

Jim's responsibilities are multi-faceted: development of water quality standards for in-stream biology (biocriteria), nutrient criteria, water quality monitoring, watershed restoration projects, water quality data management, and development of landscape data/tools for characterization and management of watersheds and water quality. His work is inherently interdisciplinary. Understanding, solving and preventing water quality problems requires regular facilitation of collaboration between diverse disciplines including biology, chemistry, geomorphology, toxicology, hydrology, geography, landscape ecology and others. This work continues to be a challenging mix of politics and science, since partnering with eight states involves interrelationships of federal and state laws, the stark realities of resource limitations, lawsuits, and constant striving to utilize science and data to inform immediate and long term decisions.

Over the years, Jim has been involved in the development of environmental education courses/curricula at the high school level including courses on: Global Environmental Issues Environmental Studies, Economics and the Environment, and The Ecology of Water. He also has seen action from the "citizen" side as a founder of the Pigeon River Action Group.

While at MIT, Ralph Hyre worked on the Boston Community Information System. Afterwards, he has built robots, has been a business consultant, and has built web community systems at VIANT, an internet professional services firm. Ralph feels that a solution to the problem of rainforest destruction must engage all facets the impacted communities. Telecommunications will be critical in uniting activist groups, as well as making alternative economic opportunities available to people. He can provide assistance linking people together through telecommunications, and provide assistance in the business planning process.

While at MIT, Brandy Karl was a Course 17 major with a minor in literature. She completed her thesis on judicial politics in 2001. She has experience in quantitative statistical analysis and qualitative analysis, and her research task have focused on everything from medieval clocks to nuclear weapons!

Currently a second-year law student at Boston University concentrating in Intellectual Property, she is a member of the Journal of Science & Technology Law. Brandy feels that she can help Mission 2006 students with organizing and refining their thoughts, as well as presenting them in a professional manner (both in print and orally). She believes that it is important to integrate policy & politics into just about any discussion of science or engineering.

Jeff LeBlanc is currently a student at the Harvard Business School. He worked as a management consultant for one and one-half years, and spent lastr summer working at GE Capital's Structured Finance Group. As a Course 10 alumnus, he feels comfortable working on flow calculations, process modeling, and problem solving in general.

Jeff is a running fanatic and has participated in five marathons.

Currently a graduate student at the Harvard School of Design, Riffat Manasia enjoys putting his experience in architecture to use on complex projects. He also is passionate about the environment.

Riffat is an avid outdoor athelete and marathoner.

Currently an MBA candidate at Harvard School of Design, Marc Mander was a Course 8 major at MIT. He worked as part of a research staff in support of major satellite and missle defense projects for the Department of Defense. He has experience in project management and interests in the interaction of technology, politics, and financial decisions.

Eric Plosky, a graduate of Course 11, works as a policy analyst and transportation planner for the U.S. Department of Transportation. He may be able to assist Mission 2006 students with issues such as: urban and regional planning; transportation planning; environmental planning; governmental affairs; policy formulation, regulation, and analysis; public administration, leadership and management; working in a political context; the sociological effects and implications of technology and public policy; writing, editing, and oratory; public affairs and relations; media use; and graphic/information design.

Kenyon Potter is a civil engineer and public policy strategist. He received his BSCE from MIT, a MS in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley, and then a JD from UC Hastings College of the Law. He is Manager of Design and Construction Policy in the Office of the President of the University of California.

His areas of expertise and research include strategic project management; best management practices in engineering, procurement, and operations; risk allocation, mitigation and avoidance; and technology and policy assessment.

Bob Rein is Director of Environmental Affairs for Invensys Plc, a British multi-billion dollar energy management company. Interests include the fate and transport of contaminants in the environment, human and ecological risk assessment, sustainable development, and climate change.

In 1979, he obtained his Masters Degree at MIT though an Interdisciplinary Program (Course 25) that focused on environmental chemistry. He concentrated on obtaining in-depth scientific information provided by Courses 1, 5, 7, 10 and 12.He has been able to utilize this information to assist Industry and Government with solving complex environmental issues throughout the world. He is currently very active in the world-wide sustainable development effort, focusing on environmental, health, safety and social performance of corporations operating in both industrialized and third-world countries.

Bob has over twenty-five years of experience as an environmental chemist, environmental, health and safety professional and Commonwealth of Massachusetts Licensed Site Professional (LSP). His areas of specialization include: evaluation and mitigation of contaminants in the environment, corporate environmental, health and safety performance improvements; assurance of compliance with environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) regulations; climate change; sustainable development; waste minimization and pollution prevention.

Jose Rosa a Professor at University of Brasilia, working in the Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis Laboratory at the Geosciences Institute.He is also a founder and Vice-President of a non-profit foundation, the Sustainability and Development Foundation.

Jose has been a consultant for sediment and water transport studies on the Tocantins River, part of the Amazon system. In addition, he has collaborated with the Brazillian Geologcial Survey on the Tectonic Map of Brazil.

A native Brazilian, Jose has explored the Amazon since his childhood days. Part of his family is from Santarem, Para State, in the Amazon Region.

Mike Rucker is a geotechnical engineer whose career is largely geologic/geotechnical engineering characterization.He specializes in simple field geophysics with applications to engineering problems. His greatest intellectual interest lies in the application of fractals, self-organized criticality and percolation theory to practical geotechnical and geologic problems.

Mike's initial impression is that the task for this fall - characterizing and monitoring the Amazon Basin rainforest - is a perfect application of these concepts. Indeed, it might be argued that effective characterization and monitoring on that scale is not possible without these conceptual tools! Development and (shudder!) verification of percolation thresholds or self-organized criticality points for crucial changes in the basin conditions might be an essential goal of such a program.

Richard Sides graduated from the Master's in Management from Sloan in 1972, with a particular interest in mathematical modelling, probability, and forecasting in finance. Subsequently, he worked as a Controller/CFO of small companies and is now retired.

For Mission 2006, his most useful experience might have been pre-Sloan when he was employed by the British Colonial Service in Kenya for six years and tackled many of the issues relevant to the problem: resource conservation, land and water usage and misusage, reafforestation, native populations that did not want to enter the modern world, native populations that were wildly impatient to enter the modern world, the consequences of providing roads and trade, the ethics of introducing health care & veterinary services & agricultural extension. Given the duty to respect and preserve indigenous cultures, the challenges were in the big picture extremely difficult, not so hard taken one case, one instance, at a time. As in the Amazon Basin there were issues in constraining free-for-all capitalism practiced by outsiders entering the tribal areas to get rich quick (no matter what damage the indigenous people suffered): that 'dual-mandate' concept.

These matters amount to a lot more than "designing public relations protocols to gather popular support for an ecosystem management strategy"; the government has to be the fiduciary first and above all of the traditional residents of the forests (all of them not just humans). The government has to be honest and incorruptible; any harvesting of resources has to be sustainable; the duty to future generations all around the world is that this unique ecosystem must be preserved and passed on intact.

Since retirement Richard has worked in Haiti as a volunteer at Hospital Albert Schweitzer; this is not just a health-care facility as it takes responsibility for the welfare of the 280,000 inhabitants of the Artibonite valley on many fronts via its Community Development division. The Mellons who founded this hospital knew that all the troubles of their people needed addressed, that the people needed to be heard before they could be led. His last tour there ended in Dec.2001.

Richard has travelled in many parts of the world, always taking a special interest in 'sustainable development' in the rural context. Because Richard will be traveling once again in November, he will be most useful to his team in the months of September and October.

Stuart Stothoff followed up his MIT undergraduate work in Course 1 with graduate work in numerical modeling of hydrology-related environmental problems. His expertise is in numerical modeling of transport in and of the near-surface terrestrial environment. He has worked for nearly a decade on the Yucca Mountain Project developing models for hydrological processes affecting repository performance over 10 to 100 ky, especially infiltration and flow in the fractured unsaturated zone under climatic change and repository heating. He also has developed numerical models for evolution of hillslope-soil profiles and Everglades tree islands, as well as vegetation-affecting processes under microgravity.

Marcelo Targino majored in Couse 4 and now is a first-year medical resident at Cambridge Hospital with a strong interest in environmental medicine. He can providen advice on architectural design and building technology, as well as human physiology, biology, and (to some extent) epidemiology. He speaks fluent Portuguese, last visited Brazil in May 2002, and has some knowledge of small-scale mining practices in Brazil.

Kathleen Vokes graduated from MIT in 2000 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering plus the premed curriculum. For about 1.5 years following graduation, she worked for a technology consulting firm, Arthur D. Little, as a chemical engineer, researching, modelling, and analyzing alternate fuel technologies, such as fuel cells and carbon sequestration. This past December, she moved down to DC to work more directly on environmental and public health protection issues and now works at the Environmental Protection Agency in the drinking water protection group. Although her title is Environmental Engineer, her current work is focused more on policy, in terms of implementing drinking water regulations.

Since Jimmie Dale Walker III received his BS and MEng in 6-2, he has a passion for both circuits and software development. Prior to becoming a fraud detection analyst, he worked as an internet consultant for Roundarch. Therefore, he could provide insight and feedback on website development and style.

Besides having a great interest in topics of my field, he keeps up with the economy, stocks, and current events.He would remind students of the importance of keeping abreast of life outside of MIT since this will contribute to their success in the real-world.

A Course 6-3 major, Wyatt Webb wrote his thesis on building an EPROM-driven device that could
be connected to a desktop computer and used as a digital analyzer. He has written
desktop application software for 10 years for both Windows and Macintosh platforms and has been doing web-deployed software development for the last three. His specialty for the last eight years has been multimedia educational software delivered on CD or over the Internet.
Wyatt and his wife homeschool their 10 year old son and have recently begun teaching him Latin (and learning it themselves). They are big Seattle Mariners fans, although they root for the Red Sox when they aren't playing the M's. Also, Wyatt has become particularly familiar with doing Internet research as his interest in genealogy increases. He finds himself doing quite a bit of detailed research, cross-referencing, and filtering of data for both his job and himself.

A mathematical statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau, Kellie Wills has experience in time-series modeling, seasonal adjustment, sampling and estimation - all potentially relevant to species population/range issues. In addition, she has developed skills in technical communications that she hopes will serve as a resource for Mission 2006 students.

Go back to the top...