George Sparks has been the President/CEO of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science since November 2004. He spent 24 years in the electronics measurement business at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies. His career included marketing, sales, and general management of global businesses in software, systems, and services.

Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, George spent 9 years in the Air Force as a pilot and as an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics at the USAF Academy (1976-1978). He is a Distinguished Graduate of the USAF Academy with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering and holds an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

George's passion is public policy, particularly around science and education. He is a member of the Colorado Forum, Colorado Concern, and is on the Boards of Colorado Education Initiative, Colorado Business Round Table, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Denver Council of Foreign Relations, and Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

George is the founder of the Institute for Science & Policy, a program of the Museum.

Kristan Uhlenbrock is the Executive Director of the Institute for Science & Policy, a project of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where she works to ensure science has a respected role in public discourse and policymaking. She is motivated by life’s interesting people, places, problems, and potential for advancing our understanding of the world and the solutions we need to sustain it.  

For the past two decades, she’s worked at the intersection of science, policy, community engagement, and communication for organizations like the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the Center for American Progress, the American Geophysical Union, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the White House. In 2023, she was the recipient of the National Academies Eric & Wendy Schmidt Excellence in Science Communication Award.  

Kristan values giving back through leadership and volunteer roles, including serving on boards and committees for the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, the American Meteorological Society, the Association of Science & Technology Centers, and the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains Board, as well as being a mentor for the Morgridge Acceleration Program and the Promoting Geoscience Research, Education, and Success Program. She was a CIVIC DNA Fellow and an ASTC Deliberation & Dialogue Fellow.  

Professional Background:

Caitlyn has been with Colorado Public Radio since 2019. She has deep experience as a journalist, having produced and edited stories for a number of public media outlets around the country, including WNYC, KQED and most recently, for NPR’s “Weekend Edition.” She also covered the Connecticut State Capitol for WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut, WFCR in Springfield, Massachusetts and WAMC  in Albany, New York. 

In addition to her editorial expertise, Kim’s reporting is informed by stints with the federal government, including working at the State Department and the Department of Defense.

Awards:

Caitlyn’s award-winning work has been recognized by the Online News Association and The National Press Club.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in history, Wellesley College; Master’s degree in international history, London School of Economics and Political Science; Master’s degree in international relations and international economics, The Johns Hopkins University

Christie Aschwanden is the author of GOOD TO GO: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery and co-host of EMERGING FORM, a podcast about the creative process. She’s the former lead science writer at FiveThirtyEight and was previously a health columnist for The Washington Post. Christie is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. She’s also been a contributing editor for Runner’s World and a contributing writer for Bicycling. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including Discover, Slate, Consumer Reports,  New Scientist,  More,  Men’s Journal, Mother Jones, NPR.org, Smithsonian and O, the Oprah Magazine.

She’s the recipient of a 2014/2015 Santa Fe Institute Journalism Fellowship In Complexity Science and was a 2013/2014 Carter Center Fellow. Christie received a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in 2007 to travel to Vietnam and report on the legacy of Agent Orange. Her television report on Agent Orange, created in collaboration with producer George Lerner, appeared on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria in June 2007. Her New York Times article about an Agent Orange remediation project in Vietnam’s central highlands was awarded the 2008 Arlene Award for articles that make a difference.

A frequent speaker at writer’s workshops and journalism conferences, Christie is the founder of the Creative Convergence freelance writing workshops, which she developed with funding from the National Association of Science Writers. She has taught at the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop, the Boulder Magazine Writer’s Conference, the Telluride Writer’s Guild and at the Northern California Science Writers Association professional workshop series. More information about Christie’s speaking engagements here.

Christie is the recipient of a Greater Good Science Center Intellectual Humility Reporting grant, which is supporting a limited-run podcast series for Scientific American called Uncertainty Principles.

Nidhi Kalra is a senior information scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on how organizations make robust decisions in the face of deep uncertainty, primarily with applications to climate change, autonomous vehicle policy, water resource management, and energy policy. Her clients include national and international leaders in these fields, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the US Bureau of Reclamation , the California Energy Commission, and the California Department of Water Resources. She has testified on autonomous vehicle policy at three congressional hearings.

 In addition to her work at RAND, Nidhi is currently the vice president of the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty and an appointed commissioner for California 100, a statewide initiative focused on inspiring a vision and strategy for California’s next century. Previously, in 2018, Kalra served as senior technology policy adviser to then-U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris. In 2013, she served as a senior decision scientist in the Office of the Chief Economist of Sustainable Development at the World Bank, where she helped launch the World Bank's portfolio in robust decision making.

 Kalra developed educational technology tools to promote literacy among blind children in India, a project that went on to receive the Louis Braille Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation. She holds a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.

We are a catalyzing force for better policy making by encouraging Americans to talk to each other again, and to solve problems through civil dialogue and scientific thinking. A project of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Learn more at institute.dmns.org

Kate Sweeny is a Professor of Psychology and the Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Affairs at the University of California, Riverside. She earned her doctorate degree in social psychology at the University of Florida, where she first became interested in uncertainty and topics relevant to patience. Her primary research focus for over a decade has been the stressful experience of awaiting important news. She has published nearly 100 papers and chapters on waiting and related topics, which have collectively revealed complex and uniquely challenging dynamics of stress and coping during uncertain waiting periods. This work has been covered extensively in the media, including on NPR, on various podcasts, and in the New York Times and Washington Post. 

Andrew Revkin is one of America’s most honored and experienced environmental journalists and the founding director of the new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute. At Columbia he is building programs, courses, tools and collaborations bridging communication gaps between science and society to cut climate risk and boost social and environmental resilience.

He founded and runs the popular Sustain What webcast on climate and sustainability issues and innovations and writes a related Sustain What newsletter on Substack. You can subscribe here to keep track.

Revkin has written on climate change for more than 35 years, reporting from the North Pole to the White House, the Amazon rain forest to the Vatican - mostly for The New York Times. He has held positions at National Geographic and Discover Magazine and won the top awards in science journalism multiple times, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Revkin has written acclaimed books on the dawn of Earth's Anthropocene age, the history of humanity’s relationship with weather and climate, the changing Arctic, global warming and the assault on the Amazon rain forest, as well as three book chapters on science communication. Two very different films have been based on his work: “Rock Star” (Warner Brothers, 2001) and the triple-Golden-Globe-winning 1994 HBO film “The Burning Season,” based on Revkin’s biography of slain rain forest defender Chico Mendes. A lifelong musician, he was a frequent accompanist of Pete Seeger and is a performing songwriter. Learn more here.

Nathan Furr is a professor of strategy and innovation at INSEAD in Paris and a recognized expert in the fields of innovation and technology strategy. Professor Furr earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University where he studied how innovators commercialize their ideas. His bestselling books include The Innovator’s Method (Harvard Business School Press, 2014); Leading Transformation (Harvard Business School Press, 2018); Innovation Capital (Harvard Business School Press, 2019) and The Upside of Uncertainty (Harvard Business School Press, 2020). He has published broadly in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Forbes, Inc, and academic journals. He is an Innosight Fellow, has been nominated for the Thinkers 50 Innovation Award, and works with leading companies such as Google, Microsoft, Citi, ING, Philips, Solvay and others.

Susannah Harmon Furr is an entrepreneur, designer, art historian, and contrarian. Her clothing line was inspired by the intricate embroidery Dutch women painstakingly rendered on their plain uniforms—details often invisible to all but the wearer—and its significance in their daily lives. She recently started a biointensive garden as part of a larger "hope accelerator" in Normandy, She and Nathan are the parents of four children.

George Sparks has been the President/CEO of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science since November 2004. He spent 24 years in the electronics measurement business at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies. His career included marketing, sales, and general management of global businesses in software, systems, and services.

Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, George spent 9 years in the Air Force as a pilot and as an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics at the USAF Academy (1976-1978). He is a Distinguished Graduate of the USAF Academy with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering and holds an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

George's passion is public policy, particularly around science and education. He is a member of the Colorado Forum, Colorado Concern, and is on the Boards of Colorado Education Initiative, Colorado Business Round Table, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Denver Council of Foreign Relations, and Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

George is the founder of the Institute for Science & Policy, a program of the Museum.

We are a catalyzing force for better policy making by encouraging Americans to talk to each other again, and to solve problems through civil dialogue and scientific thinking. A project of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Learn more at institute.dmns.org

Senator Cleave Simpson serves as the general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and past chairman of the on the Adams State University Board of Trustees.

Simpson’s primary focus in the senate is rural Colorado relevance, resilience and prosperity.

A fourth-generation San Luis Valley farmer and rancher, Simpson has a deep understanding of the water issues facing Colorado’s agriculture and rural communities. He believes leadership through a thoughtful, collaborative approach is necessary to provide solutions to the pressing needs across Senate District 35 and the state of Colorado.

Simpson serves as a representative on the Rio Grande Basin Roundtable and is a Roundtable representative to the statewide Interbasin Compact Committee. He is active in the Colorado Water Congress, and has served on the Farm Service Agency County Committee, Alamosa County Planning Commission, Alamosa Mosquito Control District and Alamosa School District Accountability Committee. He is a member of Action 22, the Colorado Farm Bureau, and is a lifelong Republican.

Heather Dutton grew up on a potato and barley farm in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado, where she gained a love for the outdoors. 

Heather is fortunate to work as the Manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District. In this role, she manages an augmentation program for domestic, commercial, and municipal wells in five counties of the San Luis Valley. One of the greatest rewards of this position is the opportunity to work with friends in the water community to find creative ways to manage water and natural resources in the Rio Grande Basin. She was also appointed to the Colorado Water Conservation Board in 2017.

Heather previously worked to improve the health of the Rio Grande as the Director of the Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Foundation and the Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project. She now serves on the Board of the Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Foundation in addition to the Boards of the Rio Grande Watershed Conservation and Education Initiative and the Rio Grande Watershed Emergency Action Coordination Team.

Heather earned a Masters of Agriculture and Bachelor of Science Degrees in Natural Resources Management and Rangeland Ecology with a concentration in Restoration Ecology from Colorado State University. She is happiest when exploring the surrounding mountains on foot, bikes, and snowmobiles with her husband, Tanner.