Board & Officers

Larry Millstein, PhD, JD

President & Program Director

Larry Millstein is a patent attorney with Millen, White, Zelano and Branigan, PC and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Georgetown University where he also Chairs the Biotechnology Program Advisory Board. He has also served as Board Member and President of the Foresight Institute, and on the Board of the Washington Academy of Sciences. He earned his BS in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the City College of the City University of New York and his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California at San Diego and The Scripps Research Institute. He earned a JD at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law. He has served PSW as Membership Director, Program Director, Treasurer, and Vice President before becoming Program Director and President.

Robert Thompson, PhD

Vice President & Treasurer

Robert Thompson is a physicist and formerly a Lead Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton where he led research teams in the quantum technologies group and provided subject matter expertise and technical support to the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) for the fusion and photonics portfolios.  He was previously a research scientist at the Instituto Superior Tecnico (Portugal), University of Otago (New Zealand), and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). His research areas span quantum field theory in black hole space-times, metamaterial-based transformation optics and invisibility cloaking, and quantum computing.  He earned a BS in physics from Virginia Tech, and MS and PhD in physics from Tufts University.

Robin Taylor, PhD, JD

Executive Director & Corresponding Secretary

Robin Taylor is an attorney and theologian specializing in public theology. She is interested in scientific methodology and the interaction of science with politics and religion. She earned her BS in Business Administration and JD with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University, a MA from United Lutheran Seminary, and a MPhil and PhD in Systematic Theology from The Catholic University of America. She is also a certified public accountant. She is a Past President of the Society.

Scott Mathews, PhD

Recording Secretary

Scott Mathews is a native Washingtonian, born and raised in the DC area. He holds a BS in physics, and an MS & PhD in Materials Engineering from the University of Maryland. He has more than 40 years of R&D experience, working in private industry, academia, and government labs. He currently works for the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. His past work concentrated on laser micro-fabrication, laser materials processing, and laser direct-write techniques. His current research projects include magnetic materials and low energy nuclear reactions. His hobbies include Tai Chi and fixing old cars.

Anne McQueen

Member at Large
(Social Media)

Anne has a BS in Biology from Sweet Briar College and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University. She worked for the US House of Representatives as well as the Virginia General Assembly. She also consulted for the Federal government where she specialized in exercise planning and technical policy writing. Recently she transitioned to teaching, where she enthusiastically shares her love of science with preschool and elementary aged children. In her spare time, Anne enjoys exploring National Parks with her children and attending rocket launches on the east coast.

Carey Lisse, PhD

Member at Large

Carey Lisse, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to the Society and fully supports its mission of cutting edge education and exploration. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1992 while serving as part of the science team for NASA’s Nobel-Prize winning Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission. He has spent the last 30 years studying the local cosmology, i.e. the formation and evolution of solar systems from interstellar gas and dust until they harbor life. He is a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and has been a participating science team member on the NASA Deep Impact, Spitzer, and New Horizons missions. He is also an avid amateur historian.

William Blair, PhD

Member at Large

William Blair is a security engineer at SpaceX working to secure satellite constellations. Previously, he worked at Oracle Labs where he researched security topics on the Graal platform, including vulnerability analysis for multi-tenant process sandboxes with fuzz testing, control-flow integrity (CFI) on Java compilers, software supply chain security, and post-quantum cryptography. During graduate school, he had the opportunity to intern with the Cyber Security Intelligence (CSI) group at the IBM Thomas J.  Watson Research Center, where he worked on language-based cloud security topics in the DARPA Cyber Hunting at Scale (CHASE) program, and previously the DARPA Space and Time Analysis for Cybersecurity (STAC) program. He holds a BA, MS, and PhD in Computer Science from Boston University, where he picked up the exciting drone racing hobby.

Lloyd Mitchell, MD

Membership Director

Lloyd Mitchell is a molecular biologist specializing in the area of gene therapy. He is currently Chief Executive Officer of RetroTherapy, which develops therapeutics for the treatment of genetic diseases based on RNA-splicing. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland, M.S. in Physiology from Georgetown University, and M.D. from the University of Maryland. He is currently also an adjunct Associate Professor at the Howard University College of Medicine.

Elli Wunder

General Committee Member

Elli Wunder is a Naval Architect with the US Coast Guard on the Ship Design Team. She has previously worked at various shipyards helping develop and maintain the design for Destroyers and Submarines for the Navy. She earned a BS in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at Webb Institute and a BA in Physics at the University of Southern Maine. While professionally specializing in weights and stability of surface vessels, Elli intends to be a lifelong student and continue accruing degrees and certificates. She also delights in foraging native and invasive plants to transmogrify into jellies and jams for holiday gifts. She is currently at 57% completion of her goal to visit every continent.