Gugu Rutherford is a contamination control and planetary protection engineer with the NASA Langley Research Center. She came to NASA as a Pathways Intern in 2014. Rutherford holds a BS in Chemistry from Old Dominion University. She also holds a MS in Materials Science, and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Norfolk State University. As a CCE and PPE, Rutherford supports multiple flight projects to include the Mars Entry, Descent and Landing Instrumentation 2 (MEDLI2). She specializes in developing surface analysis and mitigation techniques for contamination control.

Elaine E. Seasly is currently the Deputy Planetary Protection Officer for NASA at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. She joined NASA in 2015 as the Contamination Control and Planetary Protection Lead at the NASA Langley Research Center. In that role, she was responsible for developing contamination control and planetary protection requirements, implementation plans, and evaluating compliance of flight projects to meet NASA mission needs. She began her career at Raytheon Missile Systems, where she led contamination control efforts for Missile Defense and tactical missile programs, and later transitioned to program management and management of small business innovation research. She obtained a BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Arizona, a MS in Patent Law at the University of Notre Dame, and a Doctor of Engineering at George Washington University.

Joseph J. O'Connell serves as the Technical Authority and Laboratory Manager of the Thermal Vacuum facilities for the Systems Integration and Test Branch at the NASA Langley Research Center. Prior to that, O'Connell served as the Assembly Integration and Test lead for several Langley projects. He started his career in Aerospace Engineering as a contractor at the Goddard Space Flight Center working as the Lead TVAC Engineer for the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test (HOST) and SM3A missions. He worked as a supporting TVAC Engineer on FUSE, Wilkerson Anisotropy Probe (iMAP), and various other space flight projects. He received a BS in Chemical Engineering Degree from the University of Maryland at College Park and has over 25 years of experience with testing space flight systems. He is also a recipient of the prestigious NASA Engineering Achievement Medal.

Mark Thornblom currently serves as a Program Element Manager in the Game Changing Development Program Office in the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. Prior to this role, he served as the branch head of the Systems Integration and Test Branch within the Engineering Directorate at the NASA Langley Research Center. In this role, he coordinated integration and flight qualification test activities for a wide variety of successful space flight missions for NASA and DOD. He serves on the AIAA Ground Test Technical Committee (GTTC), the NASA Space Environments Capabilities Leadership Team (CLT), and is the NASA Langley representative to the Space Environment Testing Management Office (SETMO). Thornblom holds a MS in Aerospace Engineering with an emphasis in space flight systems analysis, and has over 15 years of experience developing space flight systems. His areas of expertise include passive thermal control, thermal test, and contamination control engineering; and flight systems assembly, integration, and test (AI&T).

Bo Xiao received a PhD in electrical engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a research associate professor with the Center for Materials Research at Norfolk State University. His research interests include electronic and optical sensing devices, nanotechnology, and multifunctional thin films and devices.

Messaoud Bahoura is a professor of engineering at Norfolk State University. He is the director of the NSF-funded CREST Center for Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (CREAM). His research interests includes organic and inorganic solar cells, supercapacitors, thermoelectric materials, lithium ion batteries, ultrasensitive low power consuming sensors, and transparent heaters and radiation detectors. Dr. Bahoura has authored two book chapters, and over 170 peer reviewed journals and proceedings. He is a member of International Society for Optical Engineering, Optical Society of America, Laser and Electro-Optics Society, American Physical Society, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.