IES HOUSTON
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Become a Sponsor
  • Upcoming Events
    • Section Level Events
    • Society Level Events
    • Partner Events
  • Past Event Archive
  • Become a Member
  • Section News
    • Speaker Bios
    • NASA Mini-Conf Speaker Bios
    • Section Photos
    • IES Position Statements
  • Contact Us

NASA Mini-Conference  - 2020

Thank you to all who came out and joined us at the NASA Mini-Conference! We would especially like to thank all of the volunteers who helped with the event, the staff at Space Center Houston, Toni Clark and her team at NASA Johnson Space Center, and of course all of our speakers who truly made the event. And none of it would have been possible without the generous support of the IES and our sponsors who are listed below. All of the speaker's bios can be found below. Adjacent are just a sampling of photos from the event.

Picture
George C. Brainard, Ph.D.
Director, Light Research Program
Professor, Neurology
Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University
Dr. Brainard's academic work has been concerned with the effects of light on biological and behavioral responses of animals and humans for thirty five years.  His research on the effects of light have been supported by grants from the NASA, National Institutes of Health, FDA, DOE, DOD as well as Philips, OSRAM, Panasonic and other industrial and private sources.  He has authored over 100 original research articles and over 50 book chapters. He has written/edited 12 books or monographs including five lighting standards for the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
 
Dr. Brainard has been the US Division Six Director for the International Commission on Illumination (USNC/CIE) since 1992, chaired the IESNA Photobiology Committee for ten years, and is currently co-chair of the IESNA Light and Health Committee.
 
He has been honored with the Johnson Space Center Director’s Innovation Award (2015) the Research Award from the Professional Lighting Design Convention (2013) and the Research Award for Excellence on Photobiology, Photochemistry and Photophysics, from the American Society for Photobiology (2010). Most recently, he was named as an IES Fellow in 2019.
 
During his career, Dr. Brainard has taught neuroanatomy, neurochemistry and neurophysiology to over 9,000 medical and graduate students.  He has received the Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching and his painted portrait was dedicated to Thomas Jefferson University by the Class of 1989.

​Toni Clark, an employee of Leidos, Inc., represents the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Human Health & Performance Contract as their technical fellow for spacecraft lighting environments.  Toni is the technical lead for the JSC Lighting Lab.  She provides advice in the development of requirements for the design and testing of lighting technologies and provides leadership and representation of NASA interests among stakeholders that require lighting and display systems for spaceflight vehicles. As a subject matter expert, her role is to translate human factors and habitability research into design guidance for engineering clients. As a lead she maintains the operation of a lighting test facility for controlled testing and evaluation of light sources and camera/lighting interfaces. Toni is a proud graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering.  Her career started with NASA at Kennedy Space Center, FL as a facility design engineer for power and control systems.  Since that time she has worn many hats, including astronaut instructor, flight and ground support hardware electrical and control system designer, and designer of large scale architectural facility power and lighting systems.
Picture
Toni Clark, P.E.
NASA JSC HHPC Fellow for Spacecraft Environments
Leidos, Inc

Picture
Haniyeh Mirdamadi
Lighting Designer & Habitability Researcher for Extreme Environments
Arup
Haniyeh is a Lighting Designer and Researcher at Arup, bringing to her work a background in graphic design and human-centered design. As part of her masters studies, she has extensively researched the role of light on human psychological health and the effects of deprivation from earthly light phenomena through long-duration space expeditions, specifically human colonization of planets beyond Earth. She is interested in the non-visual effects of light on human chronobiology and cognitive performance in extreme, isolated and confined environments. Her passion in promoting human well-being for extreme living conditions has led to winning second place on the design stage and first place in the finale of NASA Phase III, 3Dprinted Habitat challenge in 2019 along with her team AI.SpaceFactory, and first place with her team Mars Colony X, in the 2018 Mars City Design Competition.

Haniyeh advises clients on lighting design strategies in a wide variety of projects for terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications. She and her multidisciplinary team at Arup continue to support AI.SpaceFactory in their work on the Terrestrial Analog (TERA) project. Haniyeh has a Masters in Lighting Design from Parsons.

Martin was appointed Global Design Director at Ligman Lighting in 2018 and has worked in the field of specialist lighting design for over 25 years. A Masters graduate from the Bartlett School of Architecture, Martin has worked directly with clients, in an independent design practice, as a multidisciplinary consultant, and now in the lighting industry. At Ligman, Martin's role has a strong focus on the European, Asian, Australasian, Middle Eastern and North American markets. His work encompasses standards, quality, technology, training and events, defining R&D for future interior and exterior product ranges, and interfacing with the international lighting design community and clients.

Previously, as Lighting Expert for Abu Dhabi City Municipality, Martin's work included publishing the award-winning new Abu Dhabi Government public lighting design standard and best practice, leading the implementation of an Emirate-wide Sustainable Lighting Strategy, and overseeing the lighting design on the Municipality's mega-projects. He is also Head of the Advisory Board & Course Director at The Lighting Institute; TLI was recently launched in the Middle East, offering lighting education courses and supporting the development of the lighting design community in the region.
Picture
Martin Valentine, FSLL, MIES
Global Design Director
Ligman Lighting

Picture
Ian Ashdown, PE (Ret), FIES
Senior Scientist
SunTracker Technologies Ltd.
Ian Ashdown is Senior Scientist for SunTracker Technologies Ltd., where he is developing horticultural lighting design software for greenhouses and vertical farms. Having formerly been Senior Scientist for Philips Ledalite, TIR Systems, Cooledge Lighting, and Lighting Analysts, he has some four decades of experience in lighting design, research and development. He currently holds 140 US patents and patent applications, and has written 42 academic papers, 100 technical articles, and the book “Radiosity: A Programmer’s Perspective.” He is an IES fellow, recipient of the 2017 IES Medal, chair of the IES Horticultural Lighting committee, a CIE/CNC Advisory Member, and an active member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.

Current research interests include: ​1) horticultural lighting; 2) climate-based annual daylight simulations; 3) radiative flux transfer (radiosity); 4) acoustic radiosity; 5) colorimetry and radiometry; 6) daylight harvesting techniques; 7) energy management systems for green buildings; 8) global illumination techniques (computer graphics); and 9) mesopic photometry.

Lee Brown received the SB (1972) in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the MD (1976) from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York. He is a tenured Professor of Internal Medicine, holds a secondary appointment as a Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine, and holds a secondary appointment as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Sleep Medicine. His research interests include photo-biological applications to human disease and performance; novel treatments for sleep disordered breathing; other sleep disorders; pulmonary and sleep physiology; and pleural disease. He previously held faculty positions at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

​He is a member of the Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi honorary societies. He has been listed in Castle Connolly “Top Doctors of America” for Sleep Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine, a “Top Doctor” in U.S. News and World Report, and won the Outstanding Clinician Award from the New Mexico Thoracic Society. He received the Alfred Soffer Award for Editorial Excellence from the American College of Chest Physicians in 2003. He has served on the Boards of Directors or Trustees of the American Thoracic Society, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the Greater Albuquerque Medical Association (GAMA); he served as President of GAMA in 2008 and now is a Councilor representing GAMA to the New Mexico Medical Society and once again a member of the GAMA Board of Trustees. Dr. Brown has also been active in the American College of Chest Physicians and chaired the Sleep Network for that organization. He was appointed to the Respiratory Care Advisory Board for the State of New Mexico in 2010 and has been chairing the Board since 2014. He has served on the Editorial Board of CHEST, the official publication of the American College of Chest Physicians, and is an Associate Editor and Section Editor (Emerging Technologies) for the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, co-editor of the Section on Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology of Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine, and was co-editor of a 2017 volume of Sleep Medicine Clinics concerned with Advanced PAP Therapies and Non-invasive Ventilation. At last count he is the author or co-author of 51 research reports, clinical guidelines, and official statements and 59 reviews and editorials, all in peer reviewed journals, as well as 25 book chapters. 
Picture
Dr. Lee K. Brown, MD
Health System Sleep Disorders Center
Tenured Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
​University of New Mexico

Picture
Rachel Fitzgerald, CLD, LC, IALD, LEED AP BD+C
Lecturer, University of Colorado Boulder
Senior Associate, Discipline Lead, Lighting
Stantec
A senior lighting designer with our team in Denver, Rachel has over 15 years of experience providing exterior and interior lighting designs for hospitality, mixed-use, retail, corporate, civic/government, religious, and recreation facilities. She is a leading expert on how lighting and daylighting drive health and wellbeing, such as her net zero energy designs for the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory Research Support Facilities where the lighting was designed to support its occupants’ natural circadian rhythms.

Over the past decade, Rachel’s commitment to designing highly sustainable and human-centric spaces has resulted in more than two dozen design awards for her projects. She was also chosen as part of Lighting Magazine's 2018 40 under 40 in both the North America and global recipients.

Her desire to create a world where lighting plays a more significant role is also manifested through her industry involvement—she’s passionate about mentoring junior staff as well as supporting best practices and rewarding innovation within the lighting industry. 

NASA Staff Panelists

Ricco Aceves

Ricco grew up in Dickinson, TX and received an undergraduate degreen in Electrical Engineering from UT-San Antonio. He currently is an early career  engineer working at NASA Johnson Space Center in the Avionics Systems Division(EV), Human Interface Branch(EV3) with a focus in imagery and lighting. Serving as the lead for the Exploration EMU (xEMU) lighting system, his team is looking into newer solid state lighting and diffuser technologies to provide astronauts with sufficient lighting to perform tasks and will serve as the face of the xEMU project for years to come.

Michael Rollins, PhD

Michael hails originally from El Paso, TX. He has received a BS in Chemical engineering from Texas Tech University, and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas, El Paso, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University. He is employed as an Image Analyst by NASA Johnson Space Center contractors since 1998 and with Jacobs Technology since 2005. In 2003, Michael began working within the Image Science and Analysis Group and has been involved with spacecraft on-orbit inspection planning and support, along with spacecraft separation event imagery planning and analysis. Both require understanding ambient lighting and how to arrange for artificial lighting alongside pre-mission prediction of lighting environments for selecting lenses, camera settings, and proper contamination control. All this helps to ensure captured imagery does not fall victim to darkness, signal noise, washout, blurring, stray light, or reduced contrast.

Pamela Baskin

Pamela is the Project Manager of the Fatigue Management Service team since its inception in 2015, under Crew Health and Safety and Behavioral Health and Performance. She and the FMS team support astronauts, NASA Astronaut Candidate Selection (ASCANs) flight surgeons, flight directors, and flight controllers in developing individualized fatigue management plans.  The Fatigue Management Service team received the JSC Group Achievement Award in 2019 in support of the Human Health and Performance Contract. She received a Silver Snoopy Award, four Bravo Awards, Flight Operation Recognition of Excellence, and Bioastronautics Excellence in Science. She has been working at NASA since 2001, following in her father's footsteps. 

Ryan Amick, PhD

Ryan is a Human Factors Engineer with over 18 years of experience evaluating human performance. He currently serves as the Habitability Discipline Scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center where he applies his expertise in the design and development of aerospace and spacecraft flight equipment, habitats, spacesuits, systems, and procedures. Dr. Amick has over 80 manuscripts and conference presentations covering various topics including spaceflight human factors, cockpit design, medical device design, occupational health and safety, and technology development.
Thank you to our sponsors for your continued support: Putterman, Schark & Associates (PSA)
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Become a Sponsor
  • Upcoming Events
    • Section Level Events
    • Society Level Events
    • Partner Events
  • Past Event Archive
  • Become a Member
  • Section News
    • Speaker Bios
    • NASA Mini-Conf Speaker Bios
    • Section Photos
    • IES Position Statements
  • Contact Us