CARNEGIE SCIENCE - Key Persons
Alycia Alexander coordinates all internal and departmental events. Alexander works with the Director to organize the weekly seminars, the neighborhood lecture series, the global visitor's program, and the college and high school internship programs.
She serves as the point of contact for new arrivals for the Earth and Planets Laboratory. Alexander has worked in nonprofit organizations for many years, primarily in development and event management. She received her B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and her MPIA from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh.
Job Titles:
- Earth & Planets Laboratory Associate Division Director
Observational astronomer Alycia Weinberger works with EPL Director Michael Walter to set and execute the Division's overall scientific and cultural vision. She also manages the postdoctoral fellowship program and oversee the Division's colloquia and internship programs, serving as a mentor to the next generation of researchers and helping to maintain a long-standing legacy of scientific excellence.
Job Titles:
- Deputy for Research Advancement
Anat Shahar is Carnegie's first Deputy for Research Advancement. She is also a Staff Scientist at Carnegie's Earth and Planets Laboratory. Her administrative work is focused on the early career scientific experience at Carnegie, including onboarding, mentorship, and professional development opportunities for postdocs and staff associates, as well as on enhancing Carnegie-wide support to advance our federal funding efforts at all stages.
Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Science in 1902 as a home for world-transforming scientific discoveries. Today, Carnegie Science's mission-to advance the investigation, research, and discovery, and apply that knowledge to the improvement of humankind-is more urgent than ever. An independent research institution, we provide our scientists with the flexibility to follow their discoveries, seize opportunities, and define new fields of investigation. Our researchers continue to ask and answer compelling questions where we have the expertise, the leadership to mobilize the international research community, and the vision to transform our understanding.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lab
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Staff Accountant
- Staff Accountant for Biosphere Sciences
Job Titles:
- Lab Manager
- Member of the Lab
- Technician
Annika Atherton earned her B.Sc. in Neuroscience from Washington State University. While studying, she volunteered in Dr. Lane Brown's lab where she studied M1 subtype retinal cells. Her passion for research drove her to join the Carnegie Institution for Science to broaden her research experience while supporting the students and faculty of the Belin Lab. Her focus is to fully support the lab's research, learning and sharpening her research skills along the way.
Ashley is a student at Johns Hopkins University pursuing a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Previously, she worked at University of Southern California studying pressure-driven membranes for water recycling and at JHU under Dr. Lutsenko studying effects of copper in the brain. Ashley is gaining laboratory research skills while helping the lab to develop new genetic tools for Bradyrhizobium manipulation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lab
- Graduate Student
When Barbara McClintock joined Carnegie Science it was a perfect match: a scientist who craved independence found an institution dedicated to supporting unfettered research. McClintock's groundbreaking discovery of "jumping genes" revolutionized our understanding of heredity and earned her a Nobel Prize.
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff
- Interim President
- Chief of Staff & Board Liaison
Ben Barbin is the Chief of Staff to Carnegie Interim President John Mulchaey and the Liaison to the Carnegie Board of Trustees.
Job Titles:
- General Counsel
- Member of the Executive Leadership Team
- Secretary
Benjamin Aderson is Carnegie's General Counsel and Secretary. He is responsible for legal matters and governance.
Job Titles:
- Chief Human Resources Officer
- Member of the Executive Leadership Team
- First Chief Human Resources Officer
Bill Fahey is Carnegie's first Chief Human Resources Officer. He officially joined the institution in the spring of 2022 after a year as in an interim position and a year consulting. He is working to modernize Carnegie's Human Resources efforts, implementing improved systems, policies, and procedures that support our research mission.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer, Vanderbilt University ( 2012 )
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Research Assistant in David Ehrhardt
Chondrules formed as molten droplets and are the products of one of the most energetic, but as yet unidentified, processes operating in the early Solar System. Alexander uses measurements and modeling of the abundances and isotopic compositions of elements (e.g., sodium, potassium, iron, magnesium, and oxygen) that may have evaporated and recondensed to constrain the conditions during chondrule formation.
Job Titles:
- Boss
- Chairman of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program 's Technology
- Selected As AAS Fellow
Alan Boss' theoretical research includes the formation of binary and multiple stars, triggered collapse of the presolar cloud, mixing and transport processes in protoplanetary disks, including thermal processing of particles during their journeys, and the formation of gas giant and ice giant protoplanets. His observational works centers on the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search project, which has been underway for the last decade at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
Alan Boss serves as the chair of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program's Technology Assessment Committee and as chair of the Independent Review Team for the NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's Coronagraphic Instrument. Boss is also chair of the Management Advisory Board for the Giant Magellan Telescope Consortium Large Earth Finder (G-CLEF).
Dr. Ana Bonaca is a Staff Scientist at Carnegie Observatories. The central theme of her research program is the Milky Way as a cosmological laboratory, which will be mapped in unprecedented detail over the next decade. She searches for unusual patterns in these new data and interprets them with numerical experimentation to provide physical understanding. Her work aims to place constraints on the nature of dark matter and galaxy formation processes from detailed observations of the Milky Way and the local universe.
Andrew Benson is building a quantitative model of galaxy formation based upon known physical laws.
The Belin Lab is a team of microbiologists who study rhizobia, a collection of soil bacteria that can convert atmospheric nitrogen gas into ammonia. Many rhizobia form beneficial symbioses with legumes such as soybeans, peanuts, and clover, where they serve as sustainable alternatives to synthetic ammonia fertilizers. We use genetics and quantitative cell biology to understand the genes in rhizobia that make these symbioses more productive.
Research in the Bhaya lab is driven by an interest in understanding how photosynthetic microorganisms perceive and evolve in response to environmental stressors, such as light, nutrients and viral attack. The team focuses on cyanobacteria which are abundant, globally relevant, and have been used to probe environmentally important processes ranging from photosynthesis to symbioses to circadian rhythms. They work both with model organisms and with cyanobacteria in naturally occurring communities. Recently, they have started to develop synthetic biology-inspired approaches to use in cyanobacteria.
Job Titles:
- Energy Systems Engineer
- Postdoctoral Fellow
Edgar Virguez is an energy systems engineer promoting the transition toward decarbonized electric power systems.
Frederick Tan holds a unique position at Embryology in this era of high-throughput sequencing where determining DNA and RNA sequences has become one of the most powerful technologies in biology. DNA provides the basic code shared by all our cells to program our development. While there are about 30,000 human genes, 98% of DNA sequences are comprised of repetitive and regulatory sequences within and between genes. Measuring the specific set of DNA sequences that are transcribed into RNA helps reveal what and how our tissues are doing by showing which genes are active.
How planets form and why they appear the way they do are two long-standing puzzles. Solving these puzzles is made more challenging by the fact that planet formation elsewhere in the universe is largely unobservable using existing telescopes. Astrophysicist John Chambers approaches this problem from a different direction using computer simulations to model the formation of planetary systems and to calculate the properties of the planets that form. His ultimate goals are to determine what forces shape the physical and chemical properties of planets, and to estimate how common Earth-like planets capable of supporting life may be.
Ken Caldeira is a Senior Scientist (emeritus) in Carnegie Science's Department of Global Ecology. He is also a Senior Scientist at Breakthrough Energy, a non-profit organization aimed at "helping the world get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions while making sure everyone has access to the clean, affordable, and reliable energy they need to thrive." Caldeira is also a Professor (by courtesy) in Stanford University's Department of Earth System Science, and participates in teaching and advising of Stanford students in that capacity. Professor Caldeira has a wide-spectrum approach to analyzing the world's climate systems. He studies the global carbon cycle; marine biogeochemistry and chemical oceanography, including ocean acidification and the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle; land-cover and climate change; the long-term evolution of climate and geochemical cycles; climate intervention proposals; and energy technology.
Caldeira is a member of the committee producing the 2015 U.S. National Academy of Sciences report "Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts". He is also a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. In 2010, Caldeira was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He was a co-author of the 2010 US National Academy America's Climate Choices report. He participated in the UK Royal Society geoengineering panel in 2009 and ocean acidification panel in 2005. Caldeira was coordinating lead author of the oceans chapter for the 2005 IPCC report on Carbon Capture and Storage.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr. Lyssa Freese is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Ken Caldeira. Her research lies at the intersection of climate change and the clean energy transition, as she aims to better inform the transition to a zero emissions energy system as well as mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Prior to joining Carnegie Science, she obtained her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science at MIT, and she worked for environmental policy think tanks in both Washington, D.C. and Beijing. In addition to the research she does with the group, she is passionate about community engaged science and using air quality to guide a just energy transition.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Spradling Lab at Carnegie 's Department of Embryology
Madhulika Pathak is an HHMI Postdoctoral Researcher and a member of the Spradling Lab at Carnegie's Department of Embryology. Pathak has a demonstrated history of working in academic research pertaining to understanding mammalian embryo development and hatching behavior in the context of human infertility management. She is skilled in mammalian embryo culture, molecular biology (qPCR), microscopy, immunocytochemistry, embryology, proteomics (Mass spectrometer analysis), along with experience in computational biology (Sequencing and Protein docking), proficiency in programming languages (C++ and Python).
Mengyi Cao's research focuses on establishing Steinernema nematodes as an emerging genetic model to study microbial symbiosis. Steinernema spp are soil-dwelling entomopathogenic (EPN, insect-parasitic) nematodes that naturally associate with mutualistic bacteria in the genus Xenorhabdus. Cao's group mainly works with a recently isolated strain of S. hermaphroditum, which has shown to be genetically tractable. Further development of genetic tools in Steinernema nematodes will help us better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying host-microbe interactions.
The Cao lab is hiring a research technician to help setting up the lab and developing transgene and CRISPR-Cas9 based genome-editing tools in Steinernema.
Ned Ruby's lab has a continuing interest in bacterial symbiosis with animals. He works closely with Margaret McFall-Ngai's group to investigate the Vibrio fischeri-sepiolid squid light-organ association as a model for beneficial bacteria-host interactions.
Ned Ruby has worked for 30 years on beneficial bacterial-host interactions. He was hired into the Symbiosis Cluster at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004, where he held the Steenbock Chair of Microbiological Sciences, and was Vice-Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology. He has served on the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Microbiology, been a visiting professor at HuaZhong U, China, and an EU/Marie Curie ITN Researcher at the Max-Planck Institute, Bremen, Germany, and received the University of Hawaiʻi's Regents Medal for Excellence in Research. Recently, he was a Moore Scholar at Caltech and was Chair of the American Academy of Microbiology Awards Board. With Nicole Dubilier, he instituted and chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Animal-Microbe Symbioses, and is currently directing the annual West Coast Bacterial Physiologists Conference at Asilomar, CA. Until recently, he co-directed the NIH-COBRE Integrative Center for Environmental Microbiomes and Human Health at the University of Hawaiʻi.
In 2022, Ruby moved his lab to the newly launched BSE. His current research uses (i) a broad-based approach to analyze how sequential signaling cascades and nutrient manipulation produce rhythmic patterns of bacterial metabolism that underlie symbiotic persistence, (ii) new analytical and imaging approaches to discover novel pathways of signaling between a symbiont and its host, and (iii) comparative and functional genomics and epigenetics to discover principles controlling population-level interactions among symbionts.
Dr. Nidia Morrell is Carnegie's Resident Astronomer at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
As the 11th President of Carnegie, Eric D. Isaacs developed new institutional partnerships, expanded interdisciplinary research efforts, and ensured Carnegie Science researchers access to the most advance scientific tools of the day.
Our founder George Ellery Hale was determined to push beyond the descriptive astronomy of earlier generations to understand the internal physics of the Sun and the stars. The Mount Wilson telescopes that he built transformed astronomy and astrophysics.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lab
- Postdoctoral Associate
Alan Boss is a theorist and an observational astronomer. His theoretical work focuses on the formation of binary and multiple stars, triggered collapse of the presolar cloud that eventually made the Solar System, mixing and transport processes in protoplanetary disks, and the formation of gas giant and ice giant protoplanets. His observational works centers on the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search project, which has been underway for the last decade at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
While fragmentation is universally recognized as the dominant formation mechanism for binary and multiple stars, there are still major questions. The most important of these is the role of magnetic fields. Boss has been studying the collapse of individual molecular cloud cores via special computer modeling, to understand the chances for binary and multiple star system formation and to define which cloud cores are likely to collapse to form single stars, such as our Sun.
A shock from an exploding star called a supernova has been considered the most attractive mechanism for introducing short-lived radioisotopes (SLRIs) into the solar nebula. Boss has been modeling the problem of simultaneous triggering and injection. His results support the supernova trigger hypothesis because thin supernova shocks are better at injecting SLRIs than the thick planetary nebula. Boss is currently running 3D models, including the effects of target cloud rotation, to learn to what extent injection occurs into a protoplanetary disk formed as a result of triggered collapse.
Boss also studies the mixing and transport of solids in protoplanetary disks to form gas giant planets similar to Jupiter, or to undergo outbursts in marginally gravitationally unstable (MGU) disks. Boss' 3D models show how crystalline silicates, observed in the outskirts of protoplanetary disks and in long-period comets, could have been formed by thermal "cooking" closer to their protostar and then transported back outward to cooler regions of the disk. Boss has joined with Conel Alexander and Morris Podolak to study the detailed thermal evolution of finite-size particles in MGU disks.
While the core accretion mechanism is still considered by most to be the leading explanation for the formation of our solar system's gas giant planets, for the last decade Boss has been working to learn whether another mechanism, disk instability, could also form gas giant planets.
Along with Alycia Weinberger and Ian Thompson, Boss has been running the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search (CAPS) program, which searches for extrasolar planets by the astrometric method, where the planet's presence is detected indirectly through the wobble of the host star around the center of mass of the system. With over six years of CAPSCam data, they are beginning to see likely true astrometric wobbles..
Boss received his B.S. from the University of South Florida and his M.A. and Ph. D. in physics from UC-Santa Barbara, where he was also a postdoctoral researcher. Before joining Carnegie in 1981 as a staff associate (now a staff scientist), he was a research associate at NASA Ames Research Center.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Research Fellow
Jacqueline A. Dowling (Jackie) is a postdoctoral research fellow at Carnegie Science at Stanford modeling decarbonization pathways co-advised by Ken Caldeira and Steve Davis. Jackie earned her doctorate in chemistry at Caltech with a minor in environmental science and engineering advised by Nate Lewis. Her PhD thesis combined techno-economic analysis with materials chemistry to advance long-duration energy storage in reliable wind and solar electricity systems.
Job Titles:
- Chief Development Officer
Jeanine Forsythe joined Carnegie as Chief Development Officer in February 2023. She is responsible for managing the institution's fundraising efforts.
John Mulchaey is a Trustee and the 12th Carnegie Science President. Prior to his appointment, he served as the institution's Deputy for Science, as well as the Director and Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair of the Carnegie Science Observatories, the organization's division for astronomy and astrophysics research. He oversees the research and business functions across Carnegie Science three scientific Divisions, composed of research sites on the East and West Coasts and telescope facilities in Chile. He is also a renowned astronomer, well-regarded for his work on groups and clusters of galaxies-most of which, including our own Milky Way, exist collectively.
Job Titles:
- Chief Communications Officer
- First Chief Communications Officer
- Position of Chief Communications Officer
Karen Sodomick is Carnegie's first Chief Communications Officer. She is responsible for overseeing Carnegie's communications and branding strategy.
Karen Sodomick assumed the inaugural position of Chief Communications Officer at Carnegie Science in March 2022, bringing with her a wealth of expertise and experience to enhance the institution's communication strategies. In her role, Karen collaborates closely with colleagues on the Communications Team to highlight Carnegie's groundbreaking science and promote its mission and reputation.
Karen's career has encompassed leadership roles at institutions including Harlem Children's Zone, New York-Presbyterian, Phoenix House Foundation, and NASA. Her journey includes her tenure as Chief Communications Officer at Harlem Children's Zone and her position as Vice President of the Office of Communications at New York-Presbyterian, where she effectively restructured and revitalized both internal and external communications. Since joining, Karen has played a pivotal role in shaping Carnegie's distinctive narrative and elevating its visibility.
With a background that includes her previous role as Outreach Program Manager at NASA's Office of Strategic Communications and her experience in teaching rhetorical communications, public speaking, and presentation skills, Karen brings a diverse skill set to her position. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Public Relations and a Master's degree in Health Communication from Auburn University.
Job Titles:
- Communications Specialist
Katy Cain is a science communicator with a passion for design, digital marketing, and community building. With a B.S. in Biology and a Minor in Art from James Madison University and an M.Sc. in Biological Photography and Imaging from the University of Nottingham, Katy creates visually stunning digital content that communicates complex scientific concepts to a variety of audiences.
She joined the Carnegie Institution for Science in 2019 as the Digital Media and Communications Coordinator for the Earth and Planets Laboratory (EPL). In this role, she worked closely with scientific staff to develop, write, design, and produce departmental content, including newsletters, social media campaigns, scientific illustrations, photographs, event collateral, web content, and promotional materials. She also helped manage the department's internal and external websites and social media channels. She joined the Carnegie-wide communications team in 2023.
Katy has worked with nonprofits and federal institutions, including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Shenandoah National Park, Rock Creek Park, and Rock Creek Conservancy.
Job Titles:
- Senior Opto - Mechanical Engineer
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lab
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Archivist and Digital Asset Manager
Maggie Drain joined Carnegie Science in 2018. She is dedicated to organizing and preserving the Institution's historical collections and sharing the organization's historical legacy with the Carnegie community, outside researchers, and members of the public. As a member of the Communications Team, Maggie also manages the Institution's digital assets in the CAVE and supports ongoing communications projects and initiatives.
Before joining Carnegie Science, Maggie worked in archives at the Central Park Conservancy, Smithsonian Museum of American History, New York Botanical Garden, and Rockefeller Archive Center. She has a master's in library and information science from Pratt Institute and a bachelor's in history from Kenyon College.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Treasurer
Maisha Williams is Carnegie's Chief Operating Officer. She works with the President to balance the needs of today's scientists with those of future Carnegie researchers.
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President
- Member of the Executive Leadership Team
Carnegie Science Executive Vice President Mary Maxon joined the organization in November 2024 from the Biosciences Institute at Schmidt Sciences. Maxon has worked in the private sector, both in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as the public sector, highlighted by her tenure as the Assistant Director for Biological Research at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) during the Obama administration. She brings broad vision and expertise to this newly created role.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lab
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Chief Investment Officer
- First Chief Investment Officer
Michael Stambaugh is Carnegie's first Chief Investment Officer. He is responsible for managing the institution's endowment.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Recently Formed Carnegie Earth & Planets Laboratory
- Earth & Planets Laboratory Director
- EPL Director
Experimental petrologist Michael Walter became Director of the recently formed Carnegie Earth & Planets Laboratory in 2022, where he was previously Deputy Director. His recent research focuses on the period early in Earth's history, shortly after the planet accreted from the cloud of gas and dust surrounding our young Sun, when the mantle and the core first separated into distinct layers.
Part research hype-woman, part curator of institutional narratives, Natasha Metzler oversees our efforts to convey the impact of Carnegie Science's cutting-edge research and our longstanding commitment to scientific creativity. She works with her Communications Team colleagues and collaborates with Development, Events and Human Resources, and IT to deploy a broad approach to sharing our research and our organizational culture with the press and the public across a variety of platforms.
Before joining Carnegie's team, she was a reporter at the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and covered scientific research for a pharmaceutical industry trade magazine in New York. She has a master's in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism and a bachelor's in biology from Earlham College.
Job Titles:
- Graphic Designer
- Multimedia Designer / Producer
Navid Marvi is an award-winning graphic designer and musician. He joined the Department of Embryology in 2018 after spending nine years as art director at Moment Magazine. As the former communications coordinator at the Department of Embryology, Marvi worked closely with scientific staff to write, design, and produce departmental media-including newsletters, scientific illustrations, photographs, interviews, and promotional materials.
Marvi has worked steadily as a musician since 2010, playing countless shows around the east coast. He is currently a member of the bands Design Flaw and Drop Electric. The latter's weekly score can be heard on NPR's history podcast Throughline.
As the 9th President of Carnegie Science, Richard A. Meserve worked hard to recruit and retain top scientific talent and to steward the Carnegie Science endowment to enable these leading researchers with the means to move in novel scientific directions.
Job Titles:
- Business Manager
- Division Controller
Job Titles:
- Interim Deputy Division Director
Yixian Zheng has a long-standing interest in the mechanism of cell division and the cellular scaffolding known as the cytoskeleton. She has made team has made breakthroughs in understanding genome organization, with implications for both embryonic development and the aging process, as well as in the differentiation of stem cells into their final forms. In recent years, her lab applied biomedical research techniques to revealing the molecular underpinnings of coral biology with a particular focus on the symbiotic relationship between the coral host and its symbiotic algae.