Ryan McLinko
Ryan McLinko is the conference chair for NewSpace 2010 and he is currently a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the field of Aerospace Engineering after having received a bachelor’s degree in the same field at MIT. At each of the summers during his tenure at MIT, he has interned with various organizations and companies: the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project, InfoScitex Corporation, United Launch Alliance, and SpaceX. This experience is to be utilized in plans to assist the newspace launch vehicle companies, such as SpaceX and Orbital, in reducing the cost of putting people and payload into orbit. His primary area of interest is in structural design and analysis as well as systems integration, particularly of components onto a structure. On the side, he is heavily involved in various organizations and projects. Organizations of primary involvement include the Space Frontier Foundation, the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. As part of the SFF, he is has chaired two conferences and is also a board member. As part of SEDS, he maintained the positions of Vice Chair for several years and the President of the MIT chapter. As part of the AIAA, he led the MIT chapter for a couple of years as President. Most of his time, however, is spent in various engineering side projects, such as the MIT Satellite Team, Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project, MIT Rocket Team, MIT Power Beaming Team, UAV Team, and Space Architects Group.

James Pura
James Pura is a recent graduate of University of California, San Diego with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He has previously worked for Boeing Satellite Systems in El Segundo, CA and SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA. He recently accepted an offer and will be starting with NASA JPL this August. He has been working for the Space Frontier Foundation since 2007 including the editor of the online publication NewSpace News.