We are honored to have the professional and creative input of a magnificent advisory team
Leah Wu Fell is a fundraising professional with 20 years of experience at cultural institutions, museums, and nonprofits. She recently joined PBS North Carolina as Chief Development Officer, and previously worked at Wildlife Conservation Society, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Denver Art Museum, Brookings Institution, and New York University. Leah is a childhood friend of Peter’s from Litchfield, Connecticut and is thrilled to support SAM as it aspires to share the Kleeman Family’s incredible cosmic collection with the public.
Emily Hamilton is a historian of STEMM at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her current research on modern US mathematics education reform explores the Cold War origins of contemporary educational policy. At UMass Amherst, Emily teaches widely in the history of modern science, technology, and medicine in the West, with a particular focus on the influence of global politics and conceptions of national identity. She has long held a particular fascination with Space Age plastics and metals and their integration into the domestic sphere.
Sunnie Joh is an architectural and ecological landscape designer/planner in the Catskills. Over the last ten years, she has also worked for several community-driven, non-profit interdisciplinary/environmental/arts education organizations. This includes the following roles: Program Director of The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design, Secretary/Treasurer of The Wright-Ingraham Institute, and Co-founder of Bushel Collective (where the Space Age Museum has exhibited portions of its collection). Her experience with small organizations with annual budgets of <$300k and her focus on the arts, environment, and educational public programs and publications are extremely relevant for the Space Age Museum. She brings diverse experience from her varied roles and responsibilities, including project management and administration, accounting, creative content development, exhibition research and installation, strategic planning, and governance. Sunnie sees the potential for the Space Age Museum to become a popular public destination and hub for planetary discourse.
Jack Murray is proud to support the Space Age Museum in a Board advisory capacity. Originally from New Mexico, Jack currently lives in Los Angeles. He is deeply passionate about environmental issues and energy decarbonization, and has over a decade of experience in renewable energy finance and development. In his current role, he leads M&A for a battery energy storage developer, focusing on acquiring and developing energy storage systems to improve electrical grid reliability and accelerate the clean energy transition. Jack holds a BA with majors in Economics and Environmental Studies from Lewis & Clark College, and a MBA from the University of Southern California.
Giffen Ott is an architect, designer, and researcher who is interested in how we occupy and utilize all space—including, but not limited to THE space. He is also interested in how pop culture and media can drive interest and activism. He hopes by creating a navigable and accessible archive, the Space Age Museum will provide a means to tap into the zeal of a quarter-century-long space race—plus the half-century of dreaming before it—and its heavy hand on the cultural zeitgeist.
Giffen writes, “Since protecting our planet, and addressing the changing environmental and political climates of the 21st century are as far-fetched as putting humans on the moon, we would benefit from remembering that while it took 57 years from the premiere of ‘A Trip to the Moon’ and our first setting foot there, it was the presence of optimism and a drive to succeed in the everyday lives of people of every generation that made this achievement possible.”
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg (she/her/they) is a grant-writing and communications consultant for a wide range of not-for-profit organizations in and around New York City, while making her home in the Northwestern Catskills. Gerry is delighted to support the Space Age Museum’s evolution toward bringing its thrilling collection to ever-wider and more diverse audiences. Her interests include space-age toys, folk art/objects, and visual culture…science fiction cinema and animation of all eras…and moon-appreciating and stargazing. She’s interested in what our notions about “space” and “space age culture” might teach us about our place right here on this astonishing and endangered home planet.
Bradley Pitts studied aeronautics and astronautics at MIT for both his Bachelors and Masters of Science before becoming an artist full-time, having also studied architecture and visual art at MIT. Between undergrad and grad school, Bradley worked at Johnson Space Center for a stint and flew on "zero-g" aircraft with NASA (as an engineer) and with the Cosmonaut Training Facility outside Moscow (as an artist). Bradley’s art practice took him to Amsterdam for 4.5 years before he moved back to New York (where he grew up). Bradley recently completed his MFA at Columbia University, focusing primarily on sculpture. He’s proud to have found at least one item that made it into the Space Age Museum collection—a homemade Star Trek Starship Enterprise dollhouse.
David Roy (xe/xem) met Peter when they were in grad school and talked about ways of making the Space Age Museum inclusive of all experiences of space exploration and wonder about the cosmos. David appreciates that this is a priority for the museum and is excited to be a part of this Advisory Group contributing to the cause. David is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Los Angeles, CA who has also been a space enthusiast since xir earliest memories. In 2016, as a part of xir work in art, space, and technology, xe founded BLACKNASA, which is a space agency dedicated to promoting the use of rockets for peaceful purposes only and establishing a presence for artists in the emerging private spaceflight sector. David served as the 2021-2022 Maker Fellow at Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, CA to develop maker-based mentorship programs for K-12 students.
Richard Russell’s career in philanthropy spans decades and includes work with respected organizations and philanthropists around the world. Richard serves as adviser to a dozen of the world’s most generous individuals, families, and their foundations, helping them to achieve their goals effectively and efficiently. He has planned and participated in hundreds of capital campaigns, has started or refined many dozens of major-gifts and planned-giving programs, and has worked with volunteer and executive not-for-profit leaders on projects ranging from board governance and recruitment to strategic planning to CEO evaluation and coaching. Richard held leadership positions in philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy, San Francisco Opera, The Phillips Collection, Washington National Opera, Yale University, and ACLU, among others. He founded Resilient Philanthropy, which provides counsel both to individuals and foundations and to not-for-profit organizations.