Emily Dulcan is a digital communications strategist with expertise in communications campaigns and planning; digital content creation and strategy for social media, email and web; multimedia production; messaging and message discipline; earned media; and writing and editing. She is currently the Director of Digital Engagement at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to curing cystic fibrosis and providing all people with the disease the opportunity to lead full, productive lives. She joined the Foundation in late 2015 after serving for three years as Digital Director at the Peace Corps.

After working with nonprofits in Washington D.C. and Mexico, in 2006 Emily earned a master’s degree in cross-cultural journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and parlayed her love of words into a career in strategic communications. After two years at Fenton Communications, the nation’s largest public-interest communications firm, Emily served as communications director for Emanuel Pleitez’s 2009 campaign for Congress in Los Angeles. She subsequently spent three years wrangling press and managing online communications for Organizing for America/Obama for America in California and Colorado.

Emily serves on the board of the national foster youth empowerment nonprofit Foster Youth in Action. She is a 2013 Truman Project Political Partner and a 2010 New Leader’s Council fellow. She co-directed the NLC-LA chapter in 2011 and currently serves the NLC community as a Life Entrepreneurship trainer. When she’s not living to work or working to live, Emily enjoys travel, cooking and eating well.

Jason Townsend is NASA's deputy social media manager where he helps oversee and coordinate over 450 social media accounts covering NASA’s people, missions, and programs. He coordinates between internal social media users and NASA’s external community of fans and followers to tell NASA’s story using tools such as the agency’s flagship Twitter account, @NASA, and pages on Facebook and Google+. Additionally, Mr. Townsend provides guidance to agency leadership on social media best practices, policy, and upcoming social media activities. He also plans and supports successful NASA Socials (formerly Tweetups) events that take online engagement with fans and followers to the next level through behind-the-scenes, in-person experiences.

Previously, Mr. Townsend was the webmaster for NOAA, a federal agency that monitors and studies the Earth, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-governmental organization dealing with foreign policy and international relations. At NOAA, he specialized in the creation, development and operations of online communications for NOAA.gov and NOAA’s Twitter and Facebook social media accounts. At the Institute, he oversaw the daily operations of the USIP.org web site content management system, an e-mail marketing system, social media accounts, and a matrixed team of content contributors. He also worked on the NASA.gov website as a web editor and multimedia producer at both NASA Headquarters and the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Mr. Townsend has over a decade of professional and freelance experience communicating online, starting as a freelance web designer for small local businesses and student organizations at colleges and universities in 1999. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Colorado. During his tenure at NASA, he helped NASA.gov win two Webby Awards in 2010 and 2011.