2024 Solar Eclipse in Niagara Falls

David Cheney

Program Executive, Heliophysics Division
NASA Headquarters

David Cheney holds degrees from Ricks College (AS 1994), Brigham Young University (BA Physics Education 1999), and Naval Postgraduate School (MS Meteorology and Oceanography 2011).

Previously, Cheney taught math and science at the High School and Junior High School level in Utah from 1998 to 2000 and served on active duty in the Navy from 2000 to 2020.

While in the Navy, Cheney taught physics and reactor physics at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, worked as a meteorologist, oceanographer, climate analyst, and in research project management for remote sensing and space science. He started at NASA in July 2020 as a Program Executive serving in the Heliophysics Division.

Cheney managed the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) instrument that was recently launched to the International Space Station and manage Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) project that launches in about a year and Heliophysics CubeSat missions.

Lin H. Chambers, PhD

Deputy Director, Science Activation
Science Engagement and Partnerships Division
NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) “Sun, Moon, Clouds – it’s all connected.”

Dr. Lin Chambers leads NASA’s Science Activation program, a network of community-based projects reaching learners of all ages across the US and the world.

From 2016 to 2018, she managed the GLOBE Program, an international science and education program that involves students in 127 countries in observation of their local environment. Before that, she spent 23 years as a researcher in the Climate Science and Aerothermodynamics Branches at NASA Langley Research Center, where her work focused on radiative transfer and how clouds influence our climate.

Dr. Chambers pioneered engagement of students with NASA science through the Student’s Cloud Observations On-Line Project (S’COOL; now part of GLOBE), and the MY NASA DATA Project.

Akash Vangani

Deputy Chief Engineer at NASA

Akash Vangani is a Deputy Chief Engineer supporting the Launch Services Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He is responsible for all engineering aspects related to design, integration and processing of flight hardware elements and facility/ground support equipment. He provides technical insight and approval for missions, with recommendations for final "go/no go" launch decisions. In this position, Akash is responsible for the implementation of the program technical oversight policy. Some notable missions that Akash has supported recently include the Solar Orbiter, MARS 2020, Sentinel-6 MF, LUCY and DART and Psyche.

Akash is the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, including most recently the 2017 KSC Exceptional Service Medal for successfully leading the Falcon 9 version 1.1 certification effort, serving as the lead NASA representative on the SpaceX Accident Investigation Team for the F9-20 Anomaly and acting as Assistant Chief Engineer all in support of the Jason-3 mission. In 2014 Akash received the prestigious KSC Strategic Leadership Award “For outstanding leadership and significant technical contributions to NASA certification of Expendable Launch Vehicles.”

He has a B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the California Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Benjamin Asher

Mission Design Engineer

Benjamin Asher is a husband, father, and mission design engineer supporting NASA’s Deep Space Logistics project. He studied at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott for his BS in Aerospace Engineering and then later completed his MS in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. He has supported various missions throughout his career such as OSIRIS-REx, TESS, ICESat-2, and LandSat-9 and is looking forward to establishing a regular presence of humans around the Moon supporting Artemis.