2024 Nature Guardians

Jayden Conner

Jayden is a production assistant and videographer for Centreity Learning Systems. Her primary responsibility involves facilitating the seamless transition of professors and their courses from the traditional face-to-face format to an engaging online environment. She helps ensure that educational content is effectively adapted for digital platforms, enhancing the learning experience for students worldwide. She has contributed to a series of environmental chemistry videos for Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. These videos focus on the relationship between pollutants and the delicate ecosystem, emphasizing the need for sustainable practices. In her personal life, Jayden is a beekeeper. Her family has been keeping bees for over 15 years. They strive to use all natural methods with the bees, resulting in unadulterated honey and wax. She is actively learning about native plants and their health benefits, as well as planting and harvesting these native species. She has been helping to restore a piece of family land by planting over 30,000 native seeds—trees, plants, flowers, and mushrooms—and removing invasive species. 

 

Marriko Fanning

Jack Howard

Jack lives in Charlotte, NC. He is a retired community college professor who still actively teaches physics and astronomy at several local colleges. Ever a proponent of lifelong learning, he is currently working on master’s degrees in Space Science and Biblical Studies.

When Jack began his teaching career, climate change and global warming were questions in need of serious evidence-based discussion, and he approached them this way in his early astronomy courses when teaching planetary science. In the years since, the case for what is happening to our planet has become convincing. Jack now approaches these issues and the care of our planet with a heightened sense of urgency.

Jack is married and has two grown sons and one adult granddaughter. When not teaching and studying, he enjoys music (piano and clarinet), hiking the mountains of North Carolina, and practicing his skills flying airplanes.

Debbie McKay

Debbie is a retired science teacher from West Virginia. During her teaching career, she and her students became involved with pulsar research at Green Bank Observatory. Through their involvement with Pulsar Search Collaboratory, their continued research was accepted for the annual American Astronomical Society conference in 2020 that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii. Debbie continued her involvement in astronomy with educational user testing for the Vera C. Rubin Telescope in Chile.  She is currently a HSTA teacher through West Virginia University. HSTA, or Health, Science, Technology Academy, is a one-of-a-kind mentoring program in the state of West Virginia that helps participating high school students conduct research and succeed in STEM-based undergraduate and graduate degree programs. She also is a teacher cohort for West Virginia’s Climate Change Professional Development through Fairmont State University. In addition, Debbie is the state’s climate change coordinator for Trout Unlimited, a conservation group dedicated to preserving freshwater streams and rivers. She is on an advisory board for an environmental center in Wheeling, WV and is also a member of their DEIA committee. She is very proud to have been the first person from West Virginia to travel to Chile with ACEAP or Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador program as well as an educator researcher with NITARP, NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program.  Her love of science extends from the natural sciences on earth through the cosmos of space.  In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, kayaking, and fly fishing with her husband, and spending time with her horses.

Paul D. McKay

Paul D. is an Appalachian native, which he credits for his passion for everything outdoors and as a major driving force in his career.

As a videographer, Paul has spent the last few years working in the elearning field, guiding a design team to create engaging, enjoyable, and educational videos to be used in classrooms around the world. By using learning pedagogies, Paul has helped to create educational videos of a wide range of topics, such as chemistry, Arabic language and culture, emerging technologies in renewable energy sources, and core curriculum courses. He is of the belief that storytelling is at the heart of information retention and education.

Outside of his work, Paul also volunteers with Trout Unlimited, a cold water conservation organization. Given that his home state is nicknamed “The Mountain State”, but is also infamous for its coal production, Paul finds it important to do what he can to maintain a healthy ecosystem in his wild and wonderful home. In addition to volunteering with Trout Unlimited, he also volunteers with Project Healing Waters, a fishing organization for wounded veterans. Paul is an outspoken advocate for not only the environment, but mental health and believes that it is important to lend whatever support he can to those that may be in need.

In his limited freetime, Paul enjoys experimenting with new recipes and watching bad sci-fi movies with his two cats. He would describe himself as a storyteller and outdoor enthusiast.

Paul M. McKay

Paul M. is a retired attorney living in Wheeling, WV. Prior to retirement he focused on elder law and estate planning and is currently a board member of the Estate Planning Council of the Ohio Valley. He has always had a major interest in the environment and biodiversity and the natural sciences, having majored in biology. He is past director of Oglebay Institute’s Nature Center and is currently the chair of the Schrader Environmental Center’s oversight committee. He is a board member of the Brooks Bird Club, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of birds and other flora and fauna in West Virginia. The Brooks Bird Club publishes the Redstart, West Virginia’s only peer reviewed scientific journal. He is the Trout Unlimited National Leadership Council Representative for the State of West Virginia where he sits on several workgroups and chairs the communications workgroup. Trout Unlimited is a national nonprofit organization with over 300,000 members and is dedicated to conserving, protecting and restoring America’s cold-water fisheries and their watersheds. In his spare time, he enjoys bird watching and fly fishing with his wife.

Jason Schreiner

Jason is an astrophysicist with more than twenty years of experience in the education and public outreach sector, utilizing telescopes, observatories and planetariums.  He graduated from Widener University, where he was selected three times for the NURO (National Undergraduate Research Observatory) research program.  His observations at the Lowell Observatory resulted in the successful identification of a variable star.  His college education was well-rounded and included biology, organic chemistry and environmental science, among other subjects.

Jason served as the Planetarium Coordinator at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach for eight and a half years.  There, he created and implemented numerous astronomy programs, performed frequent educational talks, curated science and history exhibits, and much more.

He currently serves as a NASA Solar System Ambassador, as well as an ACEAP ambassador to the American observatories located in Chile, such as Gemini, ALMA, and the next generation Rubin Observatory.  Jason is a member of the Southeastern Planetarium Association and the American Astronomical Society.

As a resident of Spaceship Earth, Jason is also a passionate environmental scientist and conservationist.  Any decent astronomer understands the importance of protecting the island oasis that is our home among the vast emptiness of the Universe.  Discussions with the public often turn toward climate science, biodiversity and the delicate balance of conditions necessary for life.  He is very excited to be a member of the Mission Patagonia expedition and become a Guardian of nature.