Nana Naisbitt is the first executive director of the Telluride Science Research Center, a position she assumed in January 2007, after managing the organization for four years as the executive director of Pinhead Institute. Nana was the founder of Pinhead Institute, a Smithsonian Affiliate and science education non-profit and served as its executive director from April 2001 until December 2006.

In 2003, Nana brought TSRC’s “Public Science Lectures” out of a cloistered classroom into the Telluride limelight. Since then, she has helped guide scientists to present their talks at an appropriate level for an educated lay audience. The Talks, once held at the public Library, then the Conference Center, are now held at the Palm Theater. By creating a cohesive marketing strategy, she brought attendance up from 1-5 laypersons weekly per lecture to an average of 145 locals and visitors per lecture. The Town Talks are the first high-level, academic science lecture series in the region. She has hosted more that 100 public science talks, attracting audiences up to 400 attendees. Mentoring the TSRC science communications interns is particularly rewarding to her.

Nana has been named a "Smithsonian Research Collaborator" for her writings on natural history and was a member of the Encyclopedia of Life Steering Committee formed by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 2004. As Pinhead’s director, she was instrumental in catalyzing the Encyclopedia of Life Symposium in Telluride in February 2004, which brought together 40 of the world’s leading taxonomists, conservationists, and information technologists. The White Paper and Strategic Plan, which emerged from that meeting under the direction of Pinhead Institute, served as the basis for the $25 million dollar MacArthur Foundation grant awarded to the Smithsonian in 2007 to launch the Encyclopedia of Life project.

She partnered with the California Academy of Sciences to produce a public forum, in February 2002, to help frame the scientific, ethical, and philosophical debates surrounding emerging genetic technologies. Nana designed the program and moderated it. Panelists included Dr. Rodney Brooks, Dr. Nina Jablonski, Dr. Robert Lanza, and Dr. Thomas Okarma. In May 2000, she designed and moderated a forum, entitled "Human Genome Human Being," in Beijing, China, in cooperation with Peking University and the Link Foundation.

With her father John Naisbitt and Douglas Philips, she wrote High Tech High Touch (Broadway Books, 1999), which was translated into twelve languages. She has appeared on the Leher News Hour, the BBC World Service, and NPR among other broadcasters, and has spoken at venues throughout the world including the Smithsonian Institution, California Academy of Sciences, Peking University, 92nd Street Y, the National University in Taiwan, and the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

In June of 2000, Nana wrote "Will low tech replace high tech?" for TIME magazine's five part series, "Visions 21," which included articles by Stephen J. Gould, Raymond Kurzweil, Bill Gates, and Freeman Dyson. In 1999, Fast Company selected her as one of 21 "thought leaders offering compelling ideas for the 21st century" along with Bob Pittman, Craig Venter, and others.

Naisbitt is active in the Telluride community. Currently she is a member of the Telluride Playwirght's Festival board and the Telluride TV board. She served on the Telluride Ecology Commission for two years from 2005 – 2007, as the President of Telluride Friends of the Library from 2003 - 2006, was a member of the Robin Magee Memorial Committee in 2005 - 2006. She received her BA in history from University of Chicago in 1984.

Rory Sullivan, Assistant Director, TSRC's longest serving employee now in his eighth year (pictured left in photo and below in Nepal collecting beetles), graduated with honors from Lewis & Clark College in American History in May 2009. Rory was the first Lewis and Clark recipient of the SHEAR Mellon (Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) Fellowship Award in 2008, including a $2,000 research stipend and all-expenses-paid participation in a three-week long seminar at University of Pennsylvania, giving him the opportunity to begin research on his senior honors thesis. He also received a 2008 Mary Stuart Rogers Scholarship Award for “personal qualities of dedication, integrity, compassion, sensitivity, self-discipline, and leadership.” During the fall of 2010, Rory lived in Xela, Guatemala studying to take the DELE exam at the highest level. He spent nine months after graduation in Columbia (2009 -2010) furthering his Spanish language studies and getting a much needed break. He travelled for a nine months in Pakistan, India, Bangledesh, and Nepal between his sophomore and junior year of college, and six months in Spain, Morroco, and Turkey after graduating from Telluride High School. Rory has also studied French, Latin, and Greek. He is an invaluable TSRC employee, knowing as much as the director about running year-round TSRC operations, and no one carries as much stuff at one time as he does while maintaining his charm and wit.

Jake Sullivan, Tech support and business manager, will finish his junior year at Union College in Schenedtady, NY in June of 2011 -- just in time to start work at TSRC in the summer -- where he is majoring in Classics. Jake has become the TSRC Tech Director, making everyone's life a little easier. It's a position he earned when scientists noticed he had innate talent and began seeking him out to solve their AV and computer problems. In 2011, Jake also manages the TSRC business planning and accounting during the busy summer seasons. In January of 2008, he was selected by the THS principal as one of nine high school students  to attend a Colorado Supreme Court Case in Denver to witness the final hours of a once intractable local land issue, the condemnation of the Valley Floor. In 2007, Jake was accepted as a Pinhead Intern into a multidisciplinary work-study program for two-months in Panama. Jake has received numerous grants to further his studies, including merit scholarships from Telluride Rotary Club, Just For Kids Foundation, Pinhead Institute, and the American National Bank. Jake has worked for TSRC part-time since grade school, but now works full-time in the summer months. Jake has appeared in numerous theater and improv productions in Telluride. He is pictured above with a snake in Panama.

Eliza Keating moved to Telluride in 2005 with the intention of being a ski bum for a season. Now she calls Telluride her home. She was so in love with Colorado that she transferred from Trinity College on the East Coast college to the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2007, where she finished her degree in Anthropology. During college, she conducted extensive fieldwork in Ghana and Trinidad. Upon her return to Telluride, Eliza began working with Telluride's New Community Coalition, a non-profit organization committed to identifying, coordinating, and implementing sustainability projects in San Miguel County and the surrounding region. She acted as director of the Green Building program and helped to develop and pass an energy efficiency ordinance for new home construction in San Miguel Country and Mountain Village. Eliza and her fiancé got itchy feet and spent the entire year of 2009 traveling across Asia by land from the Philippines to Egypt. From the scorching chili peppers of Indonesia to the great blue sky of Mongolia; from the towering mountains of Kyrgyzstan to the great expanses of the Syrian desert, what remains closest in their hearts is the simple kindness and generosity of strangers encountered along the way. Eliza enthusiastically joined the TSRC team in February 2010 and has already made her mark helping to plan the first TSRC meeting in Silverton, Colorado and solving a myriad of problems from shortage of lodging in June to problems created by the unexpected scheduling of a Phish Concert in August. Her decisive, quick thinking coupled with her pleasant outlook (and penchant for traveling the world) makes her a perfect addition to the TSRC team.

Katie Frazee is the newest member of the TSRC team. In 2005 she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Anthropology with a concentration in Human Biology, and a degree in Sociology with a concentration in Deviance and Law. Katie spent the summer between her junior and senior year of college working for the Smithsonian Institution. She assisted in an effort to rehouse and recatalogue the entire collection of skeletal material in the National Museum of Natural History. By 2008, Katie had earned her Masters in Forensic and Biological Anthropology from Mercyhurst College. During her graduate education Katie served as a member of the Forensic Archaeological Recovery Team that responded to the scene of forensic cases across the Northeast region of the United States. Katie has also taught Forensic Anthropology at the elementary and high school levels, as well as taught law enforcement agents how to respond when confronted with the remains of an individual, multiple individuals, or a disaster scene. After graduation, Katie cowrote a research grant that was funded by the National Institute of Justice. For the next two years, she traveled the country moving from city to city -- twenty in all -- collecting geographically and ancesrally diverse radiographic data from modern children. The aim was to build a reference database from which to estimate the age and sex of skeletal remains of unidentified children. Katie avidly appreciates the outdoors and was delighted by the research time she was albe to spend in the state of Colorado. By the fall of 2010, she chose to make Telluride her new "home away from home." She brings to TSRC her passion for the light science can shine into the darkness of the unknown and respect for the continual evolution of perspective, approach, and thought. 

Colin Skinner, TSRC's 2011 Science Communications Intern, will also serve as a part-time TSRC staffer. His strong work ethic, physical strength, and experience in patience as a summer counselor of small children provide him the necessary skills to join the staff. After graduating from University of Wisconsin in Madison in May, he will land in Telluride in June to become part of the TSRC family. He has been studying biology and hopes to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. His academic interests are highly varied and include neurobiologym consciousness studies, ethology, evolution, ecology, and conservation. Colin spent his last two summers as a student researcher in UW's Summer Research Opportunities Porgram where he worked in a biological engineering laboratory helping to develop a new, non-invasive treatment for Alzheimer's and other nerodegenerative diseases. In 2006, Colin attended Carelton College's Summer Writing Program, a three-week course on writing academic papers. When not studying or lazing around on the internet, he enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, skiing freestyle, and sailing his Laser on Lake Mendota. Colin's father, James Skinner, has been a TSRC regular scientist since 1994.