Hyperstition Incorporated

Ahmed Diallo

Program Director · ARPA-E

Dr. Ahmed Diallo is a Program Director at the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), where he spearheads high-risk, high-reward initiatives to accelerate the commercialization of fusion energy through transformative R&D, overseeing portfolios that bridge innovative diagnostics, materials, and power plant technologies to enable grid-scale electricity from fusion. A Distinguished Research Fellow and Principal Research Physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) since 2009—where he previously headed the Advanced Diagnostics Development Division and served as Deputy Director of the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) public-private partnership—Diallo has pioneered laser-aided, X-ray, and other cutting-edge diagnostic tools advancing magnetic fusion plasmas, high-energy-density physics, microelectronics, and quantum computing. Born in Burkina Faso and inspired by the quest for abundant clean energy in underserved regions, he earned a PhD in physics from the University of Iowa after earlier studies in Burkina Faso and Montana, followed by postdoctoral work at the Swiss Plasma Center and Australian National University; honored with the DOE Early Career Award, Oppenheimer Fellowship, and over 140 publications, Diallo passionately drives the fusion ecosystem toward rapid milestones for a sustainable energy future.

Andrew Duggleby

Co-Founder & CTO, Venus Aerospace · Venus Aerospace

Dr. Andrew Duggleby is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Venus Aerospace, a Houston-based startup pioneering reusable hypersonic flight technologies to enable one-hour global travel—allowing passengers to fly from anywhere on Earth and return home for dinner—through groundbreaking innovations like the VDR2 rotating detonation ramjet engine, which has achieved historic U.S. flight tests, supersonic demonstrations, and partnerships with DARPA and NASA for high-efficiency propulsion at Mach 6+. A rocket scientist with a PhD in mechanical engineering, Duggleby previously led launch operations at Virgin Orbit (hotfiring the first dual-mode 3D-printed rocket engine with NASA), contributed to early programs at Virgin Galactic, taught mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, conducted turbomachinery research at Virginia Tech, and serves as a Lieutenant Commander Engineering Duty Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve supporting the Defense Innovation Unit's space portfolio. Inspired by long-distance frustrations while stationed in Japan with his wife and CEO Sassie Duggleby—whom he co-founded Venus with in 2020 amid the pandemic—he has scaled the company to over 100 employees, raised tens of millions from investors like Prime Movers Lab and Airbus Ventures, and relentlessly advances sustainable, runway-takeoff hypersonic platforms for commercial, defense, and space applications to shrink the world dramatically.

Andrew Holland

CEO · Fusion Industry Association

Andrew Holland is the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit trade organization representing over 40 private fusion companies and 100 affiliates worldwide, dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of fusion energy through advocacy for supportive policies, public-private partnerships, regulatory certainty, and equitable treatment alongside other clean technologies to deliver abundant, safe, carbon-free power in the coming decades. With more than two decades at the nexus of energy policy, climate change, national security, and international strategy—including prior roles as Chief Operating Officer of the American Security Project (where he authored a seminal 2013 report outlining a 10-year plan for U.S. fusion leadership) and legislative aide on energy and environment for Senator Chuck Hagel—Holland has been instrumental in shaping fusion's rise from government-led research to a vibrant private industry, influencing milestones like separate NRC regulations for fusion, increased federal funding, and global collaborations. A holder of an MSc in International Strategy and Economics from the University of St. Andrews and member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, he frequently speaks on fusion's transformative potential at forums like the IAEA and pens op-eds urging infrastructure-scale investment to secure American leadership in this revolutionary energy frontier.

Andrew Ryan

President · Far

Andrew Ryan is the President of Faraday 1867 Holdings LLC, the world's largest producer of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) tape. Through its subsidiary Faraday Factory Japan, the company has delivered over 7,000km of HTS tape to fusion projects worldwide, supporting tokamaks, stellarators, levitating dipoles, and magnetic mirrors. In 2023, Faraday partnered with Coherent Corp. to scale HTS tape manufacturing for mass deployment of nuclear fusion reactors. The company has been recognized in the Financial Times Awards and Nikkei Top-500 rankings for high-growth companies in Asia-Pacific.

Ara Knaian

CEO and co-founder · Acceleron

Ara Knaian is the CEO and co-founder of Acceleron, a company focused on advancing fusion energy technology. With a background in engineering and physics, he has played a key role in developing innovative solutions for sustainable energy. Under his leadership, Acceleron aims to bring fusion power to commercialization.

Avi Loeb

Director of the Institute for Theory & Computation · Harvard University

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author (in lists of the New York Times,Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, L'Express and more). He received a PhD in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980- 1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993). Loeb has written 9 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial and Interstellar, as well as over a thousand scientific papers (with h-index of 130 and i10-index of 615) on a wide range of topics, including black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe. Loeb is the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007- present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and also serves as the Head of the Galileo Project (2021-present). He had been the longest serving Chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy (2011-2020) and the Founding Director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative (2016-2021). He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. Loeb is a former member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) at the White House, a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-2021) and a current member of the Advisory Board for "Einstein: Visualize the Impossible" of the Hebrew University. He chaired the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (2015-2024) and served as the Science Theory Director for all Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space and in 2020 Loeb was selected among the 14 most inspiring Israelis of the last decade. In 2024, Loeb was ranked number 3 in publication record and impact of research among all astronomers worldwide over the past 5 years by ScholarGPS. Loeb’s latest TED talk was among the top five most popular TED talks in 2024.

Balaji Srinivasan

Founder, Internet Legend · The Network State

Balaji S. Srinivasan is an Indian-American entrepreneur, angel investor, and futurist visionary renowned for co-founding groundbreaking companies like Counsyl (genomic screening, acquired by Myriad), Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase, where he served as the first CTO from 2018-2019), and Teleport (acquired by Topia), while investing early in crypto protocols including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and many others during his tenure as General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. A Stanford-trained polymath with BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering, he authored the Wall Street Journal bestselling book The Network State: How To Start a New Country (2022), outlining a blueprint for digital communities to crowdfund territory, build aligned societies, and achieve sovereignty as successors to traditional nation-states. In 2024-2025, Srinivasan advanced these ideas by acquiring a private island near Singapore, launching The Network School—a three-month program in Malaysia for technologists, founders, and innovators to prototype "network nations"—and speaking on crypto's emerging "privacy era" at events like Binance Blockchain Week, advocating zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized governance to enable financial sovereignty amid global shifts toward digital-first societies.

Beff Jezos

Founder · Extropic

Beff Jezos, the pseudonymous online persona of physicist and entrepreneur Guillaume Verdon, is the co-founder and leading voice of effective accelerationism (e/acc), a techno-optimist philosophy that advocates accelerating AI and technological progress as humanity's ethical imperative—rooted in thermodynamics, viewing the universe's drive toward greater entropy and complexity as a bias toward ever-smarter, energy-harnessing civilizations climbing the Kardashev scale. A former Google X quantum machine learning researcher who pioneered TensorFlow Quantum and earned a PhD in applied quantum physics, Verdon founded Extropic AI in 2022 to develop revolutionary thermodynamic computing chips that harness probabilistic physics for vastly more energy-efficient generative AI acceleration—raising $14M+ in seed funding and positioning the startup as a challenger to traditional silicon amid exploding data center demands. Doxxed by Forbes in 2023 after building e/acc into a viral counter-movement against AI decelerationists and doomers—attracting endorsements from Marc Andreessen, Garry Tan, and others—Verdon continues blending rigorous science, memetic warfare, and post-humanist vision to propel an abundant, star-faring future through unrelenting innovation.

Ben Kugielsky

Systems Engineer; UAPx · UAPx

Ben Kugielsky is a systems engineer at UAPx, an organization focused on the scientific investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), where he leads efforts in system design, data analysis, and field research. With a background in aerospace engineering and as a certified private pilot, he has contributed to advancing UAP detection technologies through practical engineering applications. His notable achievements include participating in UAP field investigations and developing sensor systems for anomaly detection. Kugielsky's expertise lies in aerospace systems, aviation, and interdisciplinary research on emerging phenomena, making him a key figure in private sector UAP studies.

Blake Scholl

Founder & CEO · Boom Supersonic

Blake Scholl is the visionary founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based aerospace company he launched in 2014 to revive commercial supersonic travel with sustainable, mainstream-accessible flights—culminating in 2025 when the XB-1 demonstrator became the world's first independently developed supersonic jet to break the sound barrier multiple times, achieving Mach 1.18 and pioneering "Boomless Cruise" technology for quieter overland flight. Inspired by a museum visit to Concorde and self-taught aerospace principles, Scholl—a Carnegie Mellon BS in Computer Science graduate and private pilot—pivoted from Silicon Valley successes: starting as an early Amazon engineer inventing automated ad systems driving billions in revenue, co-founding mobile startup Kima Labs (acquired by Groupon), and holding leadership roles at Groupon and Pelago. With orders for 130 Overture airliners from United, American, and Japan Airlines—designed for Mach 1.7 on 100% sustainable aviation fuel and targeting service by 2030—plus innovations like the Superpower natural gas turbine for AI data centers, Scholl is engineering faster global connectivity, defending U.S. leadership in aviation, and proving private innovation can conquer decades-old barriers for a high-speed, net-zero future.

Bob Boyd

founder and CEO · ATSquared Aerospace

Bob Boyd is the founder and CEO of ATSquared Aerospace, a company focused on developing cargo freight airships to advance innovative air transportation solutions. With expertise in aerospace technology, he leads efforts to create sustainable and efficient alternatives for cargo delivery. Boyd has shared his insights at events such as the Dreams of Steel Closing Party.

Brian Riordan

Co-Founder & COO · Avalanche Energy

Brian Riordan is the Co-Founder and COO of Avalanche Energy, building micro-fusion reactors (Orbitron) that you can hold in your hands—free of high-powered magnets or lasers, designed to be easily manufacturable and transportable. Brian and co-founder Robin Langtry met at Blue Origin, where both worked on rocket propulsion systems. Brian started his career in deep subsea oil and gas, pivoting to aerospace with side hustles along the way. Motivated by climate change and receding glaciers in his home state of Alaska, Avalanche has raised $45M+ and focuses on mobile power for space and underwater applications.

Bryan Johnson

Founder & CEO · Blueprint

Bryan Johnson is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and longevity pioneer renowned for founding Braintree—a payment processing platform acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013 after incorporating Venmo—before launching neurotechnology firm Kernel to develop advanced brain interfaces and OS Fund to invest in frontier science. In 2021, he embarked on Project Blueprint, a data-driven anti-aging regimen involving meticulous monitoring of dozens of organs, a strict vegan diet, over 100 daily supplements, rigorous exercise, and experimental therapies, reportedly reducing his epigenetic age by over five years and achieving the slowest aging speed ever measured in a human, all documented publicly and featured in the 2025 Netflix documentary Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever. Shifting focus in 2025, Johnson stepped back from commercializing Blueprint—hiring a new CEO amid plans to potentially sell it—to champion the "Don't Die" movement, a philosophical ideology framing continued existence as humanity's paramount priority in the era of superintelligence, blending biohacking, AI alignment, and species-level survival to inspire global communities toward radical life extension.

Bud Vos

CEO · MetOx

Bud Vos is the founder and CEO of MetOx International, a company established in 1989 that specializes in advanced materials, particularly high-temperature superconductors. He has a background in physics and has led the company in developing innovative technologies for various applications. In his current role, he oversees the strategic direction and commercialization efforts of MetOx's materials science initiatives.

Caroline Anderson

Head of Public Affairs and Communications · Fusion Industry Association

Caroline Anderson serves as the Head of Public Affairs and Communications at the Fusion Industry Association, where she leads efforts in advocacy, policy communication, and public engagement for the fusion energy sector. She has spoken at events such as the Fusion Energy Landscape, demonstrating her expertise in promoting fusion technology and its potential impacts. Her role focuses on bridging the gap between the fusion industry and broader audiences through strategic communications.

Celine Halioua

CEO · Cellectis

Celine Halioua is the CEO of Cellectis, a biotechnology company focused on gene editing technologies using tools like CRISPR and TALENs. She is a leader in the synthetic biology field, driving innovation in genome engineering.

Chris Kemp

CEO · Astra

Chris Kemp serves as the CEO of Astra, a space technology company dedicated to developing affordable and frequent launch services for small satellites. He co-founded Astra in 2016, leveraging his background in aerospace engineering from his time at NASA Ames Research Center. Kemp previously co-founded Made In Space, where he contributed to pioneering 3D printing in space environments. His expertise includes rocket propulsion systems, satellite deployment, and fostering innovation in the commercial space sector. Under his leadership, Astra has achieved multiple orbital launches, advancing accessibility to space.

Clea Kolster

Partner · Lowercarbon

Clea Kolster is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investments in climate technology and decarbonization efforts. She works on identifying and supporting innovative companies that address environmental challenges, particularly in reducing carbon emissions. Her role involves strategic investments in the energy and sustainability sectors.

Darren Woulfe

Head of Magnet Business · Intel

Darren Woulfe is an American energy sector executive and engineer best known as the Head of Magnet Business at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a leading MIT spinout developing commercial fusion energy through revolutionary high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Joining CFS in 2021, he oversees the critical magnet program essential for compact tokamaks like SPARC and ARC. Previously, Woulfe served as CFO at Makani (an Alphabet X moonshot for airborne wind energy), led procurement in solar firms like Sungevity and Recurrent Energy, and started his career as a process engineer at Intel. He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

David Ulevitch

General Partner · a16z

David Ulevitch is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, focusing on investments in cybersecurity, infrastructure software, and fintech. He previously founded and led Circle of Security (acquired by Cisco) and Garage Technology Ventures. Ulevitch serves on the boards of companies like Okta, Cloudflare, and Karat, with a strong track record in enterprise software and security.

Gianni Martire

Cofounder of Applied Physics · Applied Physics

Gianni Martire is the Co-Founder and CEO of Applied Physics. He sold his Y Combinator-backed startup and has been an angel investor, fostering the growth of companies like Flexport, Rippling, Cover, Ginkgo Bioworks, Mindbloom, and Zenefits. In 2019, Gianni shifted his focus to physics, aiming to leverage scientific advancements for societal benefit. He co-authored the groundbreaking 2021 paper "Introducing Physical Warp Drives" with Dr. Alexey Bobrick, presenting the first physical warp drive model and establishing Warp Field Mechanics as a serious field of study. Additionally, he co-authored "Searching for Intelligent Life in Gravitational Wave Signals," which uses advanced gravitational lensing, turning LIGO from a black hole observatory into one sensitive enough to view Jupiter-sized planets.

Jack Carter

Jack Carter is a physicist specializing in theoretical physics, particularly in advanced models of general relativity. He has presented on Einstein-Cartàn Spin-Torsional Gravity, which explores alternatives to black hole singularities and their implications for cosmology. His work focuses on the intersection of gravity and spacetime dynamics.

Jan Liphardt

CEO OpenMind AGI and Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University · OpenMind AGI

Jan Liphardt is a German-American biophysicist, Stanford Associate Professor of Bioengineering, and founder/CEO of OpenMind, a San Francisco-based startup pioneering OM1—an open-source, AI-native, hardware-agnostic operating system for intelligent robots—and FABRIC, a decentralized blockchain protocol enabling secure, verifiable coordination and shared intelligence among machines across vendors to foster transparent, trustworthy human-robot societies in sensitive domains like healthcare, elder care, education, and defense. With roots in single-molecule biophysics—holding a BA from Reed College, PhD from Cambridge University, postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley, faculty stints at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab—Liphardt has authored influential papers on mechanobiology, super-resolution imaging, and genomic patterns while teaching courses on engineering living matter, machine learning, and blockchain applications. In 2024-2025, he scaled OpenMind from academic insights into a $20M-funded venture backed by Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and others, co-authoring ERC-7777 for immutable robot governance, publishing arXiv preprints on LLM-driven robot behaviors, and keynoting at TOKEN2049 and ETHDenver to advocate crypto-economic incentives for autonomous systems amid the robotics explosion.

Jared Friedman

Group Partner at Y Combinator · Y Combinator

Jared Friedman is a Managing Director, Software, and Group Partner at Y Combinator, the world's premier startup accelerator, where he mentors founders, invests in early-stage companies, and has directly advised over 20 unicorns—contributing to YC-backed ventures collectively valued at more than $100 billion while championing expansions into biotech, hard tech, and AI-driven innovation. A Harvard computer science dropout inspired by maximizing impact (famously leaving the year after Mark Zuckerberg), Friedman co-founded Scribd in 2006—one of YC's earliest batches—as CTO, pioneering the shift from Flash to HTML5 document rendering and growing it into a top-100 global website with millions of users before transitioning to full-time partnering at YC in 2015. An early angel investor in successes like Cruise (autonomous vehicles), advocate for mobilizing tech against crises like COVID-19, and thought leader on spinning university research into startups, he embodies YC's ethos of bold experimentation to empower the next generation of transformative founders.

Jordan Kanis

Managing Director, Climate Technology and Sustainability · Silicon Valley Bank

Jordan Kanis is the Managing Director for Climate Technology and Sustainability at Silicon Valley Bank, where he leads investment strategies and advisory services for innovative climate-focused ventures. With a background in finance and environmental policy, he has previously held roles in banking and sustainability consulting, advising on green initiatives and capital raising. Among his notable achievements, Kanis has facilitated funding for renewable energy projects and contributed to industry discussions on sustainable finance. His expertise includes climate technology, green investments, and energy transition strategies.

Joscha Bach

AI Philosopher · California Institute for Machine Consciousness

Joscha Bach is a German-born cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and philosopher renowned for his groundbreaking work on cognitive architectures like MicroPsi, computational models of mind, consciousness as simulated self-organization, and "cyber animism"—a framework blending ancient spiritual ideas with modern AI to view intelligence as emergent software across biological, artificial, and natural systems. Holding a PhD from the University of Osnabrück and having held influential positions at Humboldt University, MIT Media Lab, Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Intel Labs, and the AI Foundation, he now leads research at the California Institute for Machine Consciousness (CIMC) in the San Francisco Bay Area, exploring the intersections of perception, motivation, emotion, and machine minds. A prolific thinker with appearances on podcasts like Lex Fridman's, TEDAI events, and his own Substack, Bach provocatively argues that consciousness arises from coherence-seeking algorithms rather than physical substrates alone, pushing boundaries in artificial general intelligence while sparking debates on ethics, reality simulation, and humanity's computational future.

Lee Cronin

CEO & Founder · Chemify

Leroy "Lee" Cronin is a British chemist and innovator best known as the founder and CEO of Chemify, a Glasgow-based deep-tech company he established in 2022 (with roots in earlier spinout efforts) to digitize chemistry through robotic automation, AI, and a universal chemical programming language that enables on-demand design, discovery, and synthesis of complex molecules for pharmaceuticals, materials, and beyond. Holding the prestigious Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow since 2013, Cronin has pioneered "chemputation" and the Chemputer platform over two decades of research, publishing over 500 papers, raising substantial funding (including $43M in 2023 and further rounds), and opening the world's first Chemifarm in 2025—aiming to revolutionize drug development and chemical manufacturing by making molecular production programmable and scalable.

Liam Corrigan

Head of Finance · Fuse Energy

Liam Corrigan is the Head of Finance at Fuse Energy, where he leads supply chain operations and capital structuring for the fusion energy company building TITAN, the world's most efficient pulsed power generator for magnetized-liner inertial fusion. Liam graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in Physics and Astrophysics and holds a Masters of Financial Economics with Distinction from Oxford. He represented the United States in rowing at two Olympic Games, winning gold in Paris 2024. Prior to Fuse, he worked at Alpine Investors and helped scale Tesla.

Linda Avey

CEO · 23andMe

Linda Avey is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of 23andMe, a company that pioneered direct-to-consumer genetic testing, making personal genomics accessible to the public. She has played a key role in advancing biotechnology through her innovative work in health and technology startups. Her contributions have significantly influenced the field of personalized medicine.

Malcolm Handley

Fusion VC Pioneer · Strong Atomics

Malcolm Handley is an American venture capitalist and former software engineer best known as the founder and managing partner of Strong Atomics, a San Francisco-based firm established in 2017 that specializes in investing in nuclear fusion startups to accelerate the development of clean, abundant, and commercially viable energy. Transitioning from a 17-year tech career—including roles as a senior engineer at Google, the first employee at Asana, and early work in virtual worlds—Handley pivoted to climate solutions, concluding fusion held unique promise. After serving in tech-to-market roles for fusion at ARPA-E, he continues to advise and back innovative approaches, with portfolio companies including Zap Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, and NearStar Fusion.

Mark Sokol

researcher and operator · Falcon Space

Mark Sokol is a researcher and operator at Falcon Space, where he focuses on investigating advanced propulsion methods, including electrogravitics and anti-gravity. He has spoken at events such as Frontier Physics, highlighting his expertise in frontier physics and space-related technologies. His work contributes to innovative developments in these areas.

Matt Aubuchon

Director of Pulsed Power Component Development · Zap Energy

Matt Aubuchon is the Director of Pulsed Power Component Development at Zap Energy, where he leads the team developing Zap's pulsed power components for their sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion reactor. Previously, he worked at EPC Power Corp, helping grow the company from a 35-person San Diego startup to a 200+ person international manufacturing company with locations in Greenville SC, Raleigh NC, and Helsinki Finland. Matt is based in San Diego and joined Zap Energy in 2023.

Matt Ocko

Co-Founder & Managing Partner · DCVC

Matt Ocko is the co-founder and co-managing partner of DCVC (Data Collective), a premier deep tech venture capital firm managing billions in assets that invests in transformative startups advancing U.S. national security, economic resilience, and frontier technologies—from quantum computing and synthetic biology to robotics, AI, defense systems, and sustainable energy—backing successes like Rocket Lab, Pivotal, and Atom Computing while co-investing with In-Q-Tel to bridge innovation with government needs. A Yale University physics graduate and inventor with over 50 patents in areas like virtualization, fraud detection, and augmented reality, Ocko began his career in 1983 as founder and VP of R&D at Da Vinci Systems, a pioneering email software company that reached over a million users before its acquisition, later making early bets on unicorns such as Zoom, Uber, Facebook, Fortinet, D-Wave Systems, and AngelList, many of which achieved massive IPOs or strategic exits to giants like Cisco, Google, and Amazon. A longtime advocate for American technological leadership, he advises organizations like Business Executives for National Security (BENS), the Defense Intelligence Memorial Foundation, federal agencies, and Congressional committees on policy and emerging tech, drawing on decades of entrepreneurial and investing experience to foster capabilities for future missions, all while still coding and building robots with his children in his spare time.

Matthew Szydagis

Associate Professor · University at Albany

Dr. Matthew Szydagis received his B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago, then worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Davis. Since 2014 he has been at the University at Albany SUNY, where he is now an Associate Professor of Physics. He studies experimental particle astrophysics, in particular direct detection of dark matter, and also conducts general detector development for rare event searches. He is the inventor of the NEST (Noble Element Simulation Technique) software, inventor of the lithium-compound-based small-scale neutron-activation reactor, and co-inventor of the snowball chamber, which uses supercooled water for particle detection. He has published well over 100 peer-reviewed publications and given over 200 talks around the world. He was inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation as a child to become a scientist, and has always been fascinated by UAP. He is a member of both the SCU as well as UAPx.

Mike Cassidy

CEO · Verkada

Mike Cassidy serves as the CEO of Verkada, where he leads the company's efforts in developing and deploying cloud-based physical security solutions, including AI-powered cameras and analytics. He has a proven track record as a serial entrepreneur, having founded Xobni in 2005, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2013, and subsequently held executive roles at Yahoo. Cassidy's expertise lies in hardware-software integration and building scalable tech startups, with a focus on security and enterprise software. His contributions include pioneering innovations in physical security technology, making him a key figure in the industry.

Oliver Hsu

Partner · Andreessen Horowitz

Oliver Hsu is a partner on the American Dynamism investing team at a16z, where he focuses on emerging computing platforms and applications for the physical world. Oliver was previously an early product hire and chief of staff at Mos, an education financing startup. There, he led multiple business operations functions and launched new products for the company. He has also spent time building out developer ecosystems in Africa at Andela and as a fellow investing in seed-stage companies with Susa Ventures. Oliver holds an AB magna cum laude from Princeton University

Robert Rose

CEO and Founder · Reliable Robotics

Robert Rose is the co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics, a Mountain View, California-based leader in autonomous aviation systems pioneering certified automation for existing aircraft—like the Cessna 208 Caravan—to enable safer, remotely piloted, and eventually uncrewed operations that expand cargo and passenger access, enhance national security through contested logistics, and integrate seamlessly into the National Airspace System. With over two decades in aerospace, self-driving vehicles, and robotics, Rose previously served as Director of Flight Software at SpaceX, leading onboard systems for the first 10 Falcon 9 launches, Dragon spacecraft missions to the ISS, and Grasshopper tests; contributed to Tesla's early Autopilot and instrument panel innovations; and headed advanced perception projects for large vehicles at Google X. A holder of dual B.S. degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering plus an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oregon State University—with roots in game engine programming at Sony PlayStation—Rose has testified before Congress on U.S. aviation leadership, collaborated with the U.S. Air Force and NASA on autonomy architectures, and driven milestones like the first uncrewed Caravan flights and FAA certification progress for detect-and-avoid technologies to revolutionize scalable, life-saving air mobility.

Robin Langtry

CEO · Avalanche Energy

Robin Langtry is a Canadian-German aerospace engineer and fusion energy innovator best known as the co-founder and CEO of Avalanche Energy (also referred to as Avalanche Fusion), a Seattle-based startup developing compact, modular Orbitron electrostatic fusion reactors for applications in mobile power, defense, space propulsion, and distributed energy. Inspired by science fiction like The Expanse, Langtry invented the Orbitron concept in 2020 after years of self-directed research, leveraging his expertise in computational fluid dynamics and turbulence modeling (with over 6,000 citations). Previously, he spent 15+ years in aerospace at Boeing and Blue Origin, leading New Glenn rocket development. Avalanche has achieved milestones like sustaining 300kV in compact devices, raised significant funding including a $40M Series A, and is building the FusionWERX neutron testing facility.

Sampriti Bhattacharyya

Founder & CEO · Navier

Sampriti Bhattacharyya is the founder and CEO of Navier, a San Francisco-based startup revolutionizing maritime transportation with zero-emission electric hydrofoil boats that "fly" above the water for unparalleled efficiency—up to 10 times more than traditional vessels—boasting the world's longest-range electric boat and features like AI-driven autodocking to make waterways viable highways for people and goods at land-like speeds and costs. Born in Kolkata, India, she overcame early academic hurdles and cultural barriers, moving to the U.S. at age 20 with just $200 to intern at Fermilab, followed by internships at NASA, a master's in aerospace engineering from Ohio State University, and a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT, where her work on autonomous underwater drones inspired her first company, Hydroswarm. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, advocate for women in STEM, and persistent innovator who once applied to over 500 internships, Bhattacharyya now leads Navier in scaling sustainable ocean mobility, with prototypes operating in the Bay Area and ambitions for global commercial, military, and transit networks.

Sean McIntosh

founder · Foothold Labs

Sean McIntosh is the founder of Foothold Labs, a company specializing in the development of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) based reactors for power generation in unmanned autonomous systems. His expertise lies in nuclear technology, particularly in creating innovative solutions like the Bockris LENR reactor, which is hypothesized to convert axions into high energy photons in hydrogen loaded vacancy sites within a nickel cathode. He has spoken at events such as Frontier Physics, highlighting his contributions to advanced energy technologies.

Will Marshall

CEO · Planet Labs

Will Marshall is the co-founder and CEO of Planet Labs, a company that designs and operates a fleet of satellites for Earth observation to provide daily imagery of the planet. He has a background in physics and previously worked on space missions at NASA.

Will Regan

President and Cofounder, Pacific Fusion · Pacific Fusion

Will Regan, Ph.D., is the co-founder and President of Pacific Fusion, a Fremont, California-based startup founded in 2023 to deliver the world's most affordable, on-demand clean energy through pulser-driven inertial fusion—leveraging fast-rising high-current pulses to magnetically compress deuterium-tritium fuel targets, aiming for net facility gain (more fusion energy out than electricity in) by 2030 via a Demonstration System promising 1,000x better price-performance than NIF's laser approach. A UC Berkeley alumnus who previously catalyzed the private fusion boom as co-developer of ARPA-E's ALPHA program supporting low-cost plasma heating, Regan later led moonshot energy and climate projects at Google X—including founding Alphabet's Mineral agricultural tech division—before assembling Pacific Fusion's elite team of national lab veterans to rapidly prototype scalable systems amid a $900M+ milestone-based Series A from General Catalyst and others. A congressional witness on fusion's promise for U.S. energy leadership, prolific communicator on podcasts and technical papers, and advocate for pragmatic paths to gigawatt-scale power, Regan is driving an ambitious roadmap toward pilot plants in the 2030s to meet exploding demand from AI, electrification, and global prosperity.