Ben Whitehouse

Executive Director/Artist
Ben is founder and director of SkyDay and is best known for his large scale paintings and twenty-four hour video projections called Revolutions.  Ben came to the US from London in 1980 and studied under poet and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally and positively reviewed in Artforum and elsewhere. Highlights include solo shows at the Delaware Contemporary, Chicago Cultural Center, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Gallery Henoch (NY) and a 2006 video installation on Times Square's giant Astrovision screen.  To create Revolution Stonehenge Ben was granted permission to spend four days and nights with the great stones - an experience he will never forget!  You can find out more about Ben's work here.

Nicole Stott 

NASA Astronaut, Aquanaut, Artist

Nicole Stott has explored from the heights of outer space to the depths of our oceans.  In awe of what she has experienced from these very special vantage points, she has dedicated her life to sharing the beauty of Earth from space with others.  She believes that sharing these orbital and inner space perspectives has the power to increase everyone’s appreciation of and obligation to care for our home planet and each other.A veteran NASA Astronaut, her experience includes two spaceflights and 104 days spent living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. She performed one spacewalk, was the first person to fly the robotic arm to capture the free flying HTV cargo vehicle, was the last crew member to fly to and from their ISS mission on a Space Shuttle, and she was a member of the crew of the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-133.  A personal highlight of Nicole’s spaceflight was painting the first watercolor in space.  

Nicole is also a NASA Aquanaut, who in preparation for spaceflight and along with her NEEMO9 crew, lived and worked during an 18-day and longest saturation mission to date on the Aquarius undersea habitat.

As an Artist, and now retired from NASA, Nicole combines her spaceflight experience and artwork to inspire creative thinking about solutions to our planetary challenges, to raise awareness of the surprising interplay between science and art, and to promote the amazing work being done every day in space to improve life right here on Earth.  You can find out more about Nicole's work here

Read how Nicole came to care so much about environment, people and sky - Nicole's Journey

Dr. Don Wuebbles

Professor of Atmospheric Science at Univ. Of Illinois and Lead Author for the IPCC

Don is a Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Illinois where he has been since 1994.  He was Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences from 1994 - 2006.  Don is an expert in atmospheric physics and chemistry with over 500 scientific publications related to the Earth's climate, air quality and ozone layer. However his work goes well beyond that through providing analysis and development of metrics used in national and international policy and in developing analyses for understanding climate impacts on society and ecosystems, plus potential resilience and societal responses.  He has co-authored a number of international and national scientific assessments, including those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.  You can find out more about Don's work here.

Dr. Danielle Lawson

Director of Intergenerational Learning Initiatives

Dr. Danielle Lawson is an Assistant Professor of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Management, and Science Education at Penn State University. Drawing on her experiences as both a formal and informal educator, her love for nature, and Costa Rican background, Danielle aims to use research to help empower and elevate the voices of all members of future and current generations to tackle complex global issues through environmental education, intergenerational learning, and social justice.

Dr. Daniel Horton

Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University 

Dan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University. He and his research group, the CCRG, use numerical models to study Earth’s climate system. He is particularly interested in extreme weather events, climate change, the impacts of climate change adaptation schemes, and Earth’s past climates (i.e., paleoclimates). Prior to Northwestern, Dan was a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford, earned his PhD in geological sciences at the University of Michigan, and obtained bachelor degrees in atmospheric science from Texas A&M and physics from Tulane University.  Between undergrad. and grad. stints he served five years in the US Air Force as a weather officer and operational meteorologist.

Dan is particularly interested in developing curriculum at the intersection of art and science, and has worked with his students to create Sky-relevant scientific explainers for Sky Day Project. You can find out more about Dan's work here