William Pomerantz

At work: Will is the Vice President for Special Projects at Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, the world's first spaceline. Virgin Galactic is building on the legacy of the award-winning SpaceShipOne, bringing a fleet of commercial spacecraft into service for private, civil, and scientific passengers.

At home: Will is married to Diana Trujillo, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Will and Diana have lived in the Los Angeles area since 2008. At home, they enjoy listening to music and pretending to learn how to play the cello, clarinet, and guitars they've picked up over the years. A (mostly) Golden Retriever rescued from the Glendale Humane Society keeps them busy.

Outside of work: Will is a Trustee of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), the world's largest student space organization. Will and Diana both occasionally serve as coaches for ZERO-G, which operates weightless parabolic flights. To date, Will has logged more than 45 minutes of weightlessness.

In the past: Will is a graduate of Harvard University, the NASA Academy, and the International Space University. From 2005 - 2011, he worked at the X PRIZE Foundation, the world-leading incentive prize organization. As Senior Director of Space Prizes, he served as the primary author and manager of the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE. He has also worked at Harvard and Brown Universities, the Futron Corporation, and the United Nations, and was the co-founder and Editor in Chief of SpaceAlumni.com. Will proudly served on a Federal Advisory Committee, producing a report called  “Meeting the Workforce Needs for the National Vision for Space Exploration." He is the author of a chapter in the textbook Space Commerce and of numerous articles for publications ranging from Ad Astra to VentureBeat.