Dr. Amber Straughn is an Astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD and is a Deputy Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.Amber grew up in a small Arkansas farming town where her fascination with astronomy began under beautifully dark, rural skies. She obtained a B.S. in Physics at the University of Arkansas in 2002, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics at Arizona State University in 2008. Amber’s first experience with NASA was flying an experiment on NASA’s microgravity KC-135 plane (the “vomit comet”) in 2001. Her broad research interests include galaxy formation and evolution, galaxy interactions, and physical processes induced by galaxy mergers including star formation and black hole growth.

Amber does extensive public speaking and media appearances including numerous live television interviews, media features for NASA, and has appeared on the History Channel, NatGeo, Spike TV, and in the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's "Hubble Gotchu" segment.

Dr. John M. Grunsfeld was named Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in January 2012. He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, managing the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope and the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Dr. Grunsfeld joined NASA's Astronaut Office in 1992. He is veteran of five space shuttle flights, and visited Hubble three times during these missions. He also performed eight spacewalks to service and upgrade the observatory. He logged more than 58 days in space on his shuttle missions, including 58 hours and 30 minutes of spacewalk time. Dr. Grunsfeld's background includes research in high energy astrophysics, cosmic ray physics and in the emerging field of exoplanet studies with specific interest in future astronomical instrumentation.