Media Contacts

Want to schedule an interview? Please email PR@ChabotSpace.org or call (510) 336-7314.

Adam Tobin, Executive Director & CEO

Adam Tobin joined Chabot in November 2016. Tobin was previously Director of Global Studios at the Exploratorium, responsible for building partnerships and providing creative services to museums and science centers around the world.

Prior to joining the Exploratorium, he was an award winning toy inventor and founder of two successful educational toy development and manufacturing companies. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University.

Gerald McKeegan, Astronomer & JPA Board Member

Gerald McKeegan joined Chabot in the year 2000 as a volunteer and adjunct astronomer. Gerald serves on Chabot’s JPA Board of Directors, and is a member of the Eastbay Astronomical Society.

McKeegan holds a Master of Science Degree in Space Studies, and has over 40 years experience working in the space industry, where he was involved with numerous spacecraft projects, including the Space Shuttle, Cassini, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars InSight, Solar B, Juno and many others. In 1988, he was awarded the NASA “Silver Snoopy” award by the NASA Astronaut Office for his work in support of the Post-Challenger Space Shuttle Return to Flight program.

McKeegan also heads Chabot’s near-Earth asteroid search and tracking program, and has made more than two thousand asteroid observations using Chabot’s 36-inch telescope.

Liz Austerman, Deputy Director

Liz Austerman has over eighteen years of experience in senior management and public program development working in informal museum settings ranging from early learning to cultural and scientific focused institutions. A creative experience designer and experienced executioner of complex programs, Liz’s leadership thrives on talent management and building inclusive, high performing teams.

Liz has played key leadership roles at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, The Asian Art Museum, Habitot Children’s Museum, and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She currently oversees the sales, public programs, volunteers and exhibitions departments at Chabot Space & Science Center.

With a BA in Fine Arts from the Columbus College of Art & Design and a MA in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University, she helped play a founding role in forming the Bay Area Museums group and frequently guest lectures for Museum Studies classes in the Bay Area.

Ben Burress, Astronomer

Burress has been a Chabot staff astronomer since July 1999, 13 months before the opening of CSSC’s state-of-the-art facility. After graduating from Sonoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in physics (minoring in astronomy), Burress signed on for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps, where he taught physics and mathematics in Cameroon.

From 1989-96, he was a crew member of NASA’s Kuiper Airborne Observatory at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA – the program which is credited with the discovery of the rings of Uranus. There he flew semi-weekly eight-hour missions above 41,000 feet (clear of Earth’s troposphere) in a specially modified C-141 “Starlifter” military cargo plane in order to take infrared readings of astronomical objects.

From 1996-99, Burress helped pioneer the Naval Prototype Optical Interferometer program at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, the facility where Pluto was discovered. The interferometer program, the first of its kind, allows astronomers to simulate a telescope of enormous breadth (and power) by combining readings from two telescopes in different locations.

Burress is an accomplished public speaker whose unique style and easy manner cuts through scientific jargon and makes him a popular interview subject.

Chabot Space & Science Center is a non-profit institution and community resource whose mission is to inspire and educate learners of all ages about the Universe and Planet Earth.