Bob Phinney, President

Bob brings to NESciTech a wide variety of skills and experience. He taught at a private K-12 school in Brookline for 38 years before retiring and starting New England Sci-Tech in 2018. He is a graduate of Harvard where he studied architecture, art, and science. He got a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification at Clark, holds a Level II archery certification, has an FCC Amateur Extra radio class license, and is a Volunteer Examiner (VE) for FCC license exams. Bob was director of IT at his K-12 school for 23 years, director of a summer science day camp for 21 years, and director of a Maine summer camp for 5 years. His primary academic subject for 38 years was classical Latin language, but he has also taught photography, algebra, English, physics and chemistry, graphic design, computer programming, woodworking, electronics, amateur radio license courses, astronomy, amateur model rocketry, and archery.

Greg Paul, Vice President

Greg Paul, KC1MND came to NEST in 2018 with over 30 years’ experience in IT technology and consulting in the technology field. He is a local Master Builder and Kinetic Sculptor, formerly with the David Lang Studios in Natick. He has designed Introductory-level classes in Arduino and electronics, and has an avid interest in teaching those subjects as well as woodworking, furniture-making, and general shop practices. Greg is an Amateur radio VE and holds an Amateur Extra FCC License as part of the NEST license testing team.

David Kahn, Director

David Kahn comes to NEST with 40 years of experience in IT, the most recent 30+ of which were as President of D. Lawton Associates. David is a graduate of MIT, with degrees in both Computer Science and Management. He has taught in the U Mass Boston MBA program, and has mentored youth entrepreneurs at Natick High School. His other interests include photography and the game of Go.

Rashel Masters, Director

Rashel Masters brings experience in process design and analysis, business analysis, technical writing, and project management to NEST. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Northeastern University and an MBA from Babson College. She served as a mentor in the STEM Mentor program at MassBay Community College. Her varied interests include writing, travel, and music.

Ted Reimann, Director

Ted has been with New England Sci Tech since its founding. He works as an Enterprise Storage Engineer at Draper Labs in Cambridge. Ted also is a Lieutenant with Dover Fire and a Urban Search & Rescue Communications Specialist with FEMA Massachusetts Task Force 1. Ted graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BS in Business Management and has received many certifications from the MA Fire Academy. He holds a FCC Amateur Extra license, a Commercial Drone Pilots License and is an ARRL Volunteer Examiner. Ted has taught in the STEM and public safety fields for over 15 years to people of all ages. Ted has a passion for NEST and furthering STEM education as a whole.

Brian McCarthy, Director

Brian McCarthy comes to New England Sci-Tech from BAE Systems headquartered in Nashua, N.H. Recently retired, Brian brings his 40-year background in Project Management, Proposal Writing, Financial Planning & Analysis and Scheduling to the Grant Writing Team. A perpetual tinkerer, Brian has experience in car construction, hi-end audio speaker designs and builds, radio-controlled models, woodworking and metal work. In the past Brian has served as an Assistant Scoutmaster and Lego league Coach. He is an experienced outdoorsman, a certified rescue diver and avid motorcyclist.

Seth Kendall, Instructor and Director

Seth Kendall is a professional CG animator educator with over 17 years of experience. Seth holds a BS and MS in Digital Media, and has worked in the fields of architectural visualization, commercial animation, and education, but most of his career has been devoted to character animation for video games and cinematics. Seth has mentored many new and experienced animators, teaching college-level courses at Drexel University, Laguna College of Art and Design, and AnimSchool. Together with Max Kendall, Seth teaches our StratoScience Lab high altitude balloon class, organizes the Wireless Technology Club workshops, and is starting a new Arduino class. Seth is also an amateur radio operator at the Amateur Extra level with the call sign KC1PZY and a member of the STARS radio club.

Brett Miwa, Instructor and Director

Brett is a practicing electrical engineer with over 30 years industry experience designing analog integrated circuits for power management applications. He has two adult daughters in STEM fields, and from an early age found ways to engage with them through electronics, woodworking, and arts and craft projects. At NEST, he typically volunteers Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, supporting the less structured open shop and youth inventors workshop activities. In his professional life, he manages a team of engineers who develop next generation technologies for green energy and power processing applications. He earned multiple degrees in electrical engineering from MIT, and continues to collaborate with his alma mater and other academic institutions through industry-sponsored research, thesis advising, and the occasional guest lecture.

Steven Van Vooren, Director



Steven (K1SVV) is a founder, scientist, technologist, and software product management expert who loves the intersection between molecular biology, personalized medicine, software automation and artificial intelligence. After a PhD in computational biology and master degrees in computer science, bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence he founded Cartagenia (acquired by Agilent), a genomics software platform that helps diagnose and research cancer and rare disease. He currently leads product marketing for a life sciences software company and in his spare time he enjoys STEM activities with his 2 boys, building AI enabled software tools, playing piano in a band and spending time at NEST helping out as a volunteer and building different maker projects.

Shantanu Kulkarni, Instructor

Shantanu currently works as an Analog IC Design Engineer in the Semiconductor industry in Westborough. He holds an MEng. ECE degree from Cornell University and an MS EE degree from Missouri S&T. Previously he also worked in the electronic circuits and high frequency electromagnetics simulation software industry. He is keenly interested in STEM and STEAM programs and has previously volunteered in teaching a two day robotics workshop at CU-Boulder, as well as participated in an IEEE Students Awareness Program for high/middle school students in Mumbai, India. Shantanu also likes hiking, backpacking, reading and traveling.

Eugene Fedotoff, Instructor

Eugene comes to NEST with nearly 20 years of experience in finance and passion for rocketry. Eugene is Senior Director, Head of Investor Relations at IPG Photonics, the global leader in high-power lasers. Prior to joining IPG, Eugene managed Investor Relations, FP&A and Corporate Finance at the leading global manufacturers of semiconductor materials and specialty chemicals. Early in his career, Eugene spent over 10 years in equity research at one of the nation’s largest banks and a Wall Street boutique firm. Eugene has his Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from The Ohio State University and MBA in Finance from John Carroll University.

Joe Fitzgerald, Leadership

Joe Fitzgerald comes to NEST with 30 years of engineering experience. As an employee of Oracle's Energy and Water business unit, he develops software to control the operation of electric grids around the world and has previously held engineering roles involving aviation safety, plastic processing, textile production, industrial laser controls, and robotics. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Software Engineering from Brandeis University. He has mentored many college students in co-op and intern positions. First licensed in 1980, Joe earned his FCC Amateur Extra Class license in 1982 and holds the call sign KM1P. His ham radio adventures include building flight hardware for the US Naval Academy's RAFT satellite and providing engineering support for the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation and the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station organizations.

Janet Sun, Program Advisor

Janet Sun brings 20+ years of product, marketing, and business development experience in Edtech software to NEST. Through her work, she has helped millions of students around the world with well-being support, equal access to education, and career development. She is passionate about the intersection of STEM, computing, and education. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a General Class Amateur Radio license.

Norman Wittels, Instructor

Dr. Wittels received his PhD, Masters of Science, & Bachelors of Science degrees from MIT where he studied electrical engineering, electron optics and experimental physics, as well as mathematics including integral equations, transcendental functions, and higher-dimensional analytic geometry. He has industrial experience at Sperry Research Center, GE, IBM, Automatix Inc., and Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute. He has taught at MIT, WPI, Hunter College High School, Brookline High, and most recently Dexter Southfield School.

Steve Palmer, Director

Steve is an Emergency Nurse in Boston with a strong interest in emergency preparedness and disaster management. He has been on the NEST board of directors since its inception in May of 2018 and brings a parent's perspective to the leadership team. His involvement began with his son’s interest in all things science and engineering.

Brigitte Berman, Leadership

Brigitte Berman is an accomplished researcher, speaker, activist and author. She is the co-founder of Pearl Star Entertainment, a full service think tank, recruiting out of leading universities in Cambridge, MA and also focusing on high level math solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. As a teenager, Berman became the youngest person to do a NASA mission and is a proud recipient of a NASA Ames Award for Group Achievement. She went on to participate in imaging at Virgin Galactic in the late 2000s. Prior to, she wrote the book Dorie Witt: A Guide to Surviving Bullies and has since reached over six million people speaking around the world, alongside notable activists and politicians like then Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. She has lobbied and testified in congress for anti-bullying, educational reform and was instrumental in passing and implementing legislation in the state of Massachusetts, in conjunction with organizations like the Anti-Defamation League.

Brigitte is currently researching in abstract maths, focusing on topos theory (category theory and geometric logic), non-standard analysis and financial modeling with Nate Ackerman, a lecturer and researcher at Harvard University. In her free time, she enjoys tennis, squash, playing music, pinball and helping researchers craft and launch their brilliant ideas into promising start-ups.

Rusty Moore, Instructor

For several years Rusty has conducted our public astronomy programs, taught wood and leather working, served as president of our rocketry club, science education advisor to our amateur radio club, and helped with program development. Rusty’s passion for science goes back to early childhood. He received his first telescope at age 5, and while still in high school he independently discovered Nova V1500 in the constellation Cygnus and was first licensed as a ham radio operator. Rusty got his start in public science education by running planetarium shows and assisting with show production at the Natural Science Center in his hometown in North Carolina. He has since worked as a historical interpreter and craftsman at two major living history museums, and more recently as Education Specialist at Blue Hill Observatory in Milton, MA where he developed tours and events focusing on space weather and the history of radio experimentation at the Observatory. Rusty is now at the McAuliffe-Shepard Planetarium in Concord, NH.

Bruce Tinkler, Leadership

Bruce has been with New England Sci Tech since it began. He has over 30 years of troubleshooting, field service, service-process-knowledge management in the IT field. Bruce holds a BA from Lake Forest College and is certified in ITIL and Agile. He brings STEM interests in amateur radio and astronomy. Bruce has been an amateur radio operator since 1982 and currently holds an Amateur Extra class FCC license. A certified FCC Volunteer Examiner since 2013, Bruce helped New England Amateur Radio develop and implement an online testing protocol approved by the ARRL. Bruce helped found and has been an officer for STARS. He is one of the W1STR station managers, a past board member of New England Amateur Radio, and trustee of the NE1AR license. Bruce enjoys ham radio public outreach (ARRL Field Day, JOTA), mentoring those new to the hobby, and communications public service (Boston Marathon net control, Walk for Hunger, SkyWarn). Bruce is a life member of the ARRL and is an Assistant Section Manager for Eastern MA. For astronomy, Bruce has been a member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston since 2001 and is a past board member. Bruce enjoys volunteering for star parties, and previously volunteered with the Clay Center observatory assisting in projects for NASA. Bruce and his wife are avid year round campers in their truck camper and enjoy photography and long walks together.

Charlie Nicholson, IT Leadership



Charlie is an avid maker, thinker, and engineer. He holds an Amateur Radio General License and has many interests spanning the whole realm of STEM including high-altitude ballooning, autonomous aviation, sustainable engineering, material science, programming, and electrical engineering. He enjoys conducting independent research to solve real-life problems. He has run a successful woodworking business for over 3 years. At NEST, Charlie volunteers his time to help other students with 3D printing, electronics, and high-altitude balloons, along with helping out behind the scenes with IT. In his free time, he enjoys running, exploring the outdoors, and reading.

Max Kendall, Instructor

Max is an 8th grader at Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School. He is the vice-president of STARS radio club at New England Sci-Tech, the president of the 4-H Science Explorers, a mentor at the Medway Library Arduino club, and founder of the New England Weather Balloon Society. He currently has an Extra license. He enjoys working with robotics and has been tinkering since he was a toddler. He also enjoys eating sushi, playing with friends, reading novels, and climbing! Max also recently launched an engineering payload on a NASA-sounding rocket through the Cubes in Space program.

Ewoud Van Vooren, Volunteer

Ewoud, a 7th grader at Curtis Middle School, enjoys mixing technology and creativity. He loves building RC cars, planes and robots, 3D printing, and coding in Python and Unity. He builds projects for Arduino, and tools for the web with AI. He holds a general class ham license as K1EVV and is working towards his extra class. Outside of all things science and technology, he's an active boy scout, and practices fencing. He enjoys playing the piano, cello, and guitar, and loves crossing over music and STEM, building projects like a guitar pedal and a midi arpeggiator.