Lucinda Land

Lucinda Land is the Executive Director of the Mars Society, an international, non-profit, humans to Mars, space advocacy organization. She joined the Society in 2002 and has held a seat on the steering committee since 2004. With a background in Geology and Graphic Design, she combined her skills to earn a Geoscience teaching credential in California and has taught a Mars science curriculum to middle schoolers since 2006. Her experience with the Society has ranged from Director of Public Relations to lobbying in Washington D.C. for the Moon, Mars and Beyond Initiative from 2004 to 2009 with the Space Exploration Alliance. Since returning from Scotland in 2010 where she was in pursuit of her MSc degree in Science Education and Communication from the University of Glasgow, Ms. Land has been working with Planetary Scientist Dr. Chris McKay at NASA Ames and the Spaceward Bound Program to bring field science education to students. Her work with Spaceward Bound has taken her to the United Arab Emirates, Mojave, and soon to Australia where she will also attend and present at the Australian Mars Society Conference. Her presentation will focus on the Spaceward Bound rover project that is a collaboration between NASA, Mars Society, and Google. Her goal for the organization is to focus on education with a Mars 101 analog field science curriculum at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), furthering collaboration with students, universities and the general public, outreach events, digital branding, and creative Mars educational materials. Her hopes in taking these steps are that the Mars Society's purpose and cause to send humans to Mars reaches and inspires a larger audience worldwide, as well as convince humanity of the compelling and inevitable reasons why we should go. Ms. Land is also working on collaborative projects for a younger audience that creates books, activities, and video games to create future Marsonauts. Last year she published the coloring book, "Exploring Mars" along with cartoonists from the Cartoon Network and the Autumn Society, an artist guild from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her second book, "Terraforming Mars" is due this year that will highlight Dr. McKay's ideas about bringing Mars to life. Finally, the third in the series is due in the Fall of 2012 that will focus on Dr. Zubrin's Mars Direct plan to send humans to Mars called, "Life on Mars". These projects and more are all towards the effort to inspire our youth and make Mars cool for kids.