PETER FALETRA, PHD

Peter Faletra is a native of Boston. He received a PhD for his work on bone marrow stem cells from Boston University where he was a teaching fellow in the accelerated medical school program. During his PhD years, he co-founded a successful biotech company and invented a novel method of producing large amounts of antisera for medical and scientific use.  He spent 2 years in our nation’s capital, as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow, and then 8 years as the Director of Workforce Development in the Office of Science at the Department of Energy.

Dr. Faletra has received numerous national and regional educational awards, including being named a AAAS fellow for his many years as a teacher and mentor to students from middle school through medical school. In 2016, he was one of a dozen people honored by the Leadership Upper Valley program of Vital Communities for his role as a mentor - an award that recognizes community leaders who have made significant positive impacts in the region. He has over 30 years experience mentoring some of the most successful secondary school students in the USA.

As the Executive Director, Dr. Faletra is involved in all our programs’ design, development, and outreach to the states of NH and VT.

MARKUS TESTORF, PhD

Markus Testorf is a native of Germany.  He received his PhD in Physics and Applied Optics from the University of Erlangen, Germany in 1994. He is a lecturer at Dartmouth College and is a one of our NHAS senior scientist instructors for students primarily interested in exploring the many applications of optics in the wide array of environmental analyses we use in our ecological investigations. He has been a mentor for our young engineering and physical science researchers since the beginning of our programs in the Upper Valley. 

Most recently, Dr. Testorf has been leading teams of students in creating spectral imaging systems that will eventually be used on drones to analyze the health of our forests in NH and VT. He is also mentoring our students in their designing and building economical interferometers for use in secondary schools. 

Alyson Michael, B.A., PhD(ABD)

Alyson Michael is from Indiana and completed her B.A. in Biochemistry, ACS at Ohio Wesleyan University in 2014. As an undergraduate she conducted NSF sponsored research at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology on the fabrication of nanostructured surfaces to improve the lifespan of orthopedic implants. Her graduate research at Dartmouth College in material chemistry focused on the development of a polymeric sensing material for one of the pesticides that plays a role in bee population decline. Alyson is highly skilled in analytical chemistry, instrumental analysis, and physical chemistry.

Alyson has taught the laboratory section of undergraduate chemistry courses at Dartmouth ranging from general chemistry to physical biochemistry. She joined the NHAS full-time as a Scientist in the spring of 2020.

Since joining the NHAS, Alyson has expanded our physical science instrumentation including a UV-Vis spectrophotometer that can identify and quantify compounds in solution. It’s a versatile instrument available for physical science investigations and is available to provide quantitative support to life science investigations as well. For the analysis of complex liquids we use our Agilent 1100 HPLC. This high-performance liquid chromatograph can be used to find out what is in a sample, such as CBD oil, and separate the components for even further analysis.

Jesse Mast, PHD

Jesse Mast completed her B.S. in Biology at York College of Pennsylvania in 2013 and her PhD in Experimental Molecular Medicine at Dartmouth in the Kuppusamy Lab in 2019. She worked on the addition of oxygenation therapy to standard-of-care chemo and radiation therapy in triple-negative breast cancer and pancreatic cancer. Her doctoral work also included the direct measurement of oxygen within the tumor and tumor microenvironment.

She attended the Upper Valley Educators Institute, where she earned Chemistry and Life Sciences teaching endorsements for grades 7 - 12 in the State of NH in 2020. She taught biology, physical science, and forensic science at Stevens High School in Claremont, NH from 2020 - 2023. Since working at the NHAS, Dr. Jesse has worked on the genetics and biodiversity of lady's slipper orchids as well as some neuro-behavioral research in C. elegans model organisms.

Olivia Streit, M.S.

Olivia Streit completed her B.A. in Biology, B.S. in Marine Biology, and GIS Certificate at the University of Maine Machias, and her M.S. in Marine Biology at UNC Wilmington. Her Masters research involved using DNA barcoding to identify invasive marine invertebrates called ascidians around Puerto Rico, and locate potential source populations upon finding newly introduced species. In this research, several species new to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean were discovered.

Since completing graduate school, Olivia worked at Abbott as a chemist, then was a Marine Mammal and Avian Observer with the State of Maine’s Maine Coastal Mapping Initiative for two seasons. In this role, she identified whales, seals, and pelagic birds during ocean mapping expeditions, then used GIS to analyze the distribution of these animals so we could assess correlations between features on the ocean floor and species density. Olivia also worked as an adjunct biology instructor with Southern Maine Community College for three semesters.