Directors

Board of Directors

  • Jacob Bien, Professor of Statistics, University of Southern California
  • Jack Conte, Musician and CEO of Patreon
  • Alexander Eccles, Pianist and Composer
  • Alex Filippenko, Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley
  • Maribel H. Fraser, Director of Information Technology, AT&T, retired
  • Juliana Gallin, Founder of the Ask a Scientist lecture series
  • Kendra Kramlich, Science Enthusiast and Investment Advisor
  • Howard Rheingold, Author and Educator
  • Robert Strong, Comedy Magician, San Francisco
  • Eric Yao, Technical Director and Chairman of Wonderfest; Bioinformatician at UC Berkeley

Emeritus Directors

  • Eugenie Scott, Founding Director, National Center for Science Education, Oakland
  • Richard Zare, Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University

Executive Director

Tucker Hiatt founded Wonderfest in 1997. With the reincarnation of Wonderfest as an independent nonprofit corporation in 2011, the Wonderfest Board appointed Tucker to the position of Executive Director.

Tucker earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of California with the expressed goal of becoming a science teacher. His thesis research explored a narrow aspect of experimental solid state (condensed matter) physics. Later, Tucker worked with UC Berkeley’s Space Astrophysics Group to develop search algorithms that are now at work around the world in the SETI@home software.

Tucker taught physics at UC Santa Cruz, Punahou School, San Francisco University High School, and Branson School. At the Exploratorium, he built an exhibit, wrote a guide book, and trained Explainers. From 2008 to 2019, Tucker was a Board member of the Bay Area Skeptics, and from 2008 to 2014, he held the position of Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Chemistry Department.

Tucker has been a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) since 1978. He has published several articles and cartoons in The Physics Teacher, the AAPT journal. In 2001, Tucker wrote and published the Layers of Scientific Understanding poster. And, in 2006, he earned the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.