Science ATL Leadership

Crystal Lazarus

Board Member since 2022

Crystal Lazarus is a seasoned Finance leader dedicated to providing sound fiscal management and outstanding financial stewardship. She serves as the Controller for Healthmpowers, a nonprofit, promoting healthy habits to build a better future for all children. She has an extensive career working in various financial leadership capacities at Georgia EMA/ Homeland Security, Atlanta Regional Commission, Emory University, and Union City Government. Crystal has managed hundreds of millions of dollars by implementing transparency, innovation, and best practices to comply with GAAP, Federal Acquisition Regulations, and other ordinances/regulations. Her educational endeavors include a Master’s degree in Government and Nonprofit Accounting from Rutgers University, a Bachelors of Science in Accounting from Georgia State University, a Finance Officer Certification from the University of Georgia and other certifications. Crystal currently serves as the President of a chartered stock group and a volunteer tax preparer for the IRS. Crystal was instrumental in helping her former employer earn the coveted Certificate of Achievement in Financial Reporting from the GFOA.

Vince Ho

Board Member since 2022

As a Manager in the Operations Transformation practice at PwC, Vince leads project teams focused on supply chain improvements and optimization for retail, CPG, and food and beverage clients. His scope of work aims to create efficiencies and streamline planning and delivery capabilities to ensure high levels of customer service while managing costs. Before his time with PwC, Vince worked in the Beverage division at Nestle USA, leading planning and forecasting efforts for a variety of products in the portfolio. As a native of Los Angeles, Vince holds degrees in Biomedical and Industrial Engineering from USC. He also earned his MBA from USC Marshall School of Business. He and his wife, Natalie, have a daughter and two cats here in metro Atlanta. Outside of work and family, Vince enjoys playing golf, watching sports, and cooking.

Jordan Rose

Founding Board Member
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director

Jordan Rose is a creative, lifelong learner with a passion for promoting science literacy and empowering youth to lead change. With Science ATL, Jordan brings together schools, companies, and community organizations to improve equitable access to Atlanta’s myriad opportunities to learn and love science. Previously, Jordan led science education initiatives at the Georgia BioEd Institute and the Emory College Center for Science Education, supporting K-12 teachers and students and facilitating university-community partnerships. He is a 2021-22 Education Policy Fellow with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and serves on advisory boards for Georgia Tech’s GIFT program, and the Georgia BioEd Institute. Jordan has a B.S. in neuroscience and a Master’s in Public Health from Emory University. He lives in Tucker and enjoys playing tennis, riding bikes with his family, rooting for Atlanta United, and jamming on the ukulele.

Emma Palmer-McVey

Board Member since 2022

Emma Palmer-McVey is the Director of the Economic Development Divison at the Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC). Emma is passionate about supporting the overall success of Atlanta’s different ecosystems as we focus on the recruitment and expansion of existing and start-up companies within key clusters, including Smart Cities, Creative Industries, Cybersecurity, FinTech, Supply Chain, Bioscience, and Health IT. She leads operational management for the division, focusing specifically on large activations, efforts involving C-suite investors and stakeholders, ensuring cohesion between Economic Development and Innovation & Entrepreneurship efforts, and acting as the strategic liaison between all activities of the Chief Economic Development Officer.

Outside of MAC, she is part of the thriving Atlanta gig economy working as a freelance Equity Stage Manager at theaters across the metro region. She also sits on the Board of Directors at Synchronicity Theatre.

Before joining MAC in 2017, Emma worked in Operations Management at MATRIX Resources, an IT Staffing company. Emma graduated from Birmingham-Southern College with a degree in Musical Theatre. An Atlanta native, she lives on the Westside with her husband, Connor, and two cats, Sampson and Ann Perkins.

Melanie Lawrence

Board Member Since 2021

Melanie Lawrence is Assistant Vice President of Research & Chief Business Officer for Research at Emory University, where she leads and executes cross cutting strategic initiatives and special projects across the research enterprise. She manages the strategic planning, budget and fiscal planning, human resources, operational improvements, and key special projects and initiatives for both the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research and the Office of Research Administration. She is also the Acting Director of Science Gallery Atlanta.

Melanie is an Atlanta native and a proud alumnus of Emory University, having received her Executive MBA from Emory’s Goizueta Business School and has been an active Emory alum, most recently as Treasurer of the Executive Women of Goizueta Alumni Board. She received her Bachelor of Arts in History, Economics, and Geography from Georgia State University.

Lucy Cronin-Golomb

Content Manager, Science Scene Calendar

Lucy Cronin-Golomb is currently working towards her PhD in psychology at Emory University. She is especially curious about learning and memory. Her interest in learning and memory was piqued during her time as research assistant at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, where she studied the brain basis of reading and language.

Now, she is interested in how our ideas, thoughts, and beliefs about the world develop over time. She wants to know more about how kids and adults grow their knowledge base- How do kids learn differently than adults? How do people choose what they want to learn? How does memory develop over time? These are just a few of the questions Lucy is pursuing in her studies.

Lucy is passionate about making science accessible to everyone. She wants to share her love for finding out the “why” and is especially enthusiastic about getting kids of all ages engaged with and excited about science! Lucy is a National Institutes of Health T32 fellow.

Sarah Peterson, PhD

Founding Board Member
Co-Founder and Director of New Initiatives

Sarah Peterson believes that wonder and curiosity have the power to bridge divides and bring diverse communities together. As a Co-Founder and Director of New Initiatives, she brings together experience as a scholar and teacher of arts and humanities topics with an insatiable curiosity about the science underlying everything we do, see and use daily. In addition to her work developing and producing innovative programming and resources that present the wonders of science in surprising and engaging ways, she works to advance the professional and career development of PhDs in all disciplines. She has a PhD in English Literature from Emory University.

Meisa Salaita, PhD

Founding Board Member
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director

Meisa Salaita has made it her mission to help others see and appreciate the beauty of science by making it a part of everyday cultural experiences. Through her work founding and directing Science ATL, she spends her days convincing everyone else to fall in love with science as well. To that end, Meisa also writes, has produced radio stories, and hosted TV shows — all in the name of science. In addition to her work with Science ATL, Meisa is a producer for The Story Collider, a science storytelling podcast. Meisa has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern, and was recently named by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of 20 Women Who Mean Business in Atlanta.

AJ Chestnut Raines

School & Youth Programs Manager

AJ Chestnut Raines is a writer and educator with a background in chemistry, mathematics and middle grades science. For over 10 years, AJ has worked in the field of STEM education. Beginning as an extracurricular instructor, AJ’s in classroom experiences led her to find her niche in curriculum and instructional design. Her interdisciplinary writings have aided in program development for science education firms, education certifications for public schools, and grant procurement for non-profit organizations. As School & Youth Programs Manager at Science ATL, AJ leads the Georgia Chief Science Officers (CSO) and STEM Professional School Partnership (SPSP) programs.

Sarah Strassler

Digital Content Contributor

Sarah Strassler is a Biochemistry PhD student at Emory University, working in a structural biology lab to understand how enzymes and RNAs interact with one another in our bodies. Her passion for science communication began while serving as Peace Corps Volunteer where she enjoyed helping students make sense of the “magic” in the world around them through science. Sarah is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and an ARCS Scholar.

Kristen Clayton

Public Events Coordinator

Kristen Clayton is a nonprofit professional with experience focusing on the arts sector and is fascinated by the intersection of science, art, community organization, placemaking, and education. Kristen values creativity and curiosity and their ability to build a bridge between art and science. As Science ATL’s Public Events Coordinator, she is responsible for planning and executing a creative slate of recurring events and in assisting in planning the Atlanta Science Festival. With a MA in Nonprofit Management and Arts Administration focusing on art and nature from the University of Oregon, her experience includes program development, research, and evaluation for the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary, and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

Susan Lozier, PhD

Board Member Since 2021

Susan Lozier is Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dean Lozier leads more than 2,500 students and 500 faculty and researchers across six internationally ranked schools in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech. She is a physical oceanographer who researches the ocean’s role in climate variability and climate change, and the role that ocean physics plays in those expected changes. She currently serves as President of the American Geophysical Union and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a past president of The Oceanography Society, as well as the international lead for the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP) observing system.

Tjuan Dogan, PhD

Board Member Since 2019

Dr. Tjuan Dogan is passionate about education and curious about the intersection of art, science, and technology. As Global Director of Social Impact at Coursera, she develops strategies to impact global societies and transform lives through learning. Prior to Coursera, she held leadership positions in corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, and social impact with Emory University, IBM, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Southern Education Foundation. Tjuan is a native of Greenville, SC, earned her Ph.D. in education, with a concentration in business management, at the University of South Carolina, and completed a year-long fellowship at Harvard Business School after earning her Ph.D. She enjoys live theater, golf, patio gardening, and making stained glass art.

Jamal Jesse

Board Member since 2019

As the Workforce Development Manager for Georgia Power, Jamal and his team develop strategies that support Georgia’s talent pipeline for the energy industry and other target industries. By guiding partnerships with education and workforce development organizations, associations, and government agencies, Jamal works to maximize available funding and educational opportunities associated with talent development.

Before his time with Georgia Power, Jamal served 20 years in the United States Navy, retiring as a Chief Petty Officer in 2014. He was stationed onboard several U.S. Navy warships, serving as project manager. A native of New Orleans, Jamal holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Management from Southwestern College and a Master of Business Administration from Auburn University. Jamal also volunteers with several veterans’ organizations. He and his wife, Marcheria, have two daughters and a Yorkie. Jamal enjoys playing golf and attending Atlanta sporting events.

Jason Hoch

Founding Board Member

Jason is President of Imperative Entertainment’s new Podcast division. Jason has over 20 years of experience with both major media companies and tech start-ups. Most recently, Jason served as Head of New Initiatives and Executive Producer at HowStuffWorks, one of the largest commercial podcast producers in the world. In this role, Jason launched three #1 podcast hits in 2018: ATLANTA MONSTER (with over 40 million downloads); its follow-up, MONSTER: THE ZODIAC KILLER; and BROKEN HARTS, a podcast collaboration with Glamour Magazine.

David Hartnett

Chairman of the Board (Founding)

As chief economic development officer for Metro Atlanta Chamber’s, David is responsible for leading a team focused on the recruitment, retention and expansion of companies and skilled talent within focused clusters e.g. corporate headquarters, bioscience, healthcare, IoT, smart city, cybersecurity, fintech, supply chain, eSports, and digital media/entertainment.

Before joining the Chamber, Hartnett served as the president and CEO of Maco Pharma (formerly United Pharma™) a privately held medical device/pharmaceutical company based in Duluth, Georgia, headquartered in Lille France. Prior to Maco Pharma, Hartnett was president and CEO of SteriFx Corporation, a specialty chemical company, contracted by U.S. Department of Defense (DARPA). Before SteriFx, he was the executive vice president of the North American headquarters of Given Imaging, Inc. (GIVN-NASDAQ). Under his leadership, the company commercialized the “PillCam” video capsule.

Hartnett is married with four sons, was raised on Coronado Island, California and is an active member of the Atlanta business community.

Danielle Freeman

Head Volunteer Coordinator

Danielle is a continuous improvement engineer at The Clorox Company. She travels to North American and Latin America to assist the various sites in the Clorox family to involve everyone every day in improvement. She enjoys focusing on furthering education/skills which led her to achieve undergraduate and multiple masters degrees. She is one of less than 35 Certified Master Facilitators in the world.

Danielle and her family are animal rescuers and often share their home with foster pets. She enjoys travel, Zumba & Orange Theory Fitness, swimming and spending time with her family. And she is an endless volunteer-aholic!

Cheryl Kortemeier

Board Member since 2019

Cheryl Kortemeier is Executive Director of Corporate Volunteer Council of Atlanta for the past 8 years. The CVC brings together business professionals who are passionate about volunteerism to share best practices, strengthen community investment strategies, and make a difference through service. Previously (1998 – 2011), she was Director of Development and Communications at Trees Atlanta. She was Board Chair of EarthShare of Georgia for three years. She is a Steering Committee member of the Greater Atlanta Regional Centre of Expertise on Sustainable Development.

Jason Wellman

Board Member since 2019

Jason is a Regional Operations Manager at Google, where he leads data center operations across the eastern United States and South America, including sites in Moncks Corner, SC; Lenoir, NC; Douglas County, GA; Widows Creek, AL; Clarksville, TN and Santiago, Chile.

Since joining Google in 2005, Jason has held various positions related to Google’s Data Center Infrastructure and Operations. During his time at Google, Jason has successfully led cross-functional teams supporting Google’s critical business operations.

He is a member of the Lithia Springs High School STEM Board of Directors, which helped the school receive its certification and distinction as Georgia’s seventh STEM school in May 2016. Jason is a former member of the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce’s Chairman’s Club and also served on the board of directors for the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

A Texas native, he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Stephen F. Austin State University. In 2005, Jason moved to Georgia with his wife and three children. The family currently resides in Milton, GA.