Dr. McDonough is responsible for developing new nerve agent, chlorine, and cyanide antidotes and stabilizing autoinjectable nano-suspension formulations for the U.S. Departments of Defense and Health & Human Services. This involves working under current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) guidelines, managing electronic filings with the Food and Drug Administration, and overseeing animal model and clinical studies. Additionally, he has developed novel calcium phosphate nanoparticle systems for small drug, interfering ribonucleic acid (iRNA), and large protein delivery. He oversees programs in ocular transdermal, oral, and autoinjectable intramuscular delivery, primarily focusing on micro- and nanoparticle formulations of new and existing pharmaceuticals to render them deliverable by alternative routes of administration and for different indications. He performs work under Good Laboratory Practices (GLP), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) controlled drug substances, and ISO 13485 medical device guidelines. He has 24 years of experience managing research efforts in pharmaceutical development including bulk and dosage-form manufacturing, regulatory strategy and compliance for filings, and licensing of new chemical entities.

Dr. McDonough led chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) development efforts for a chiral developmental diabetes compound while at Metabolex. This involved identifying and developing resolution technology to provide one enantiomer of the lead compound and was complicated by optical instability and polymorphism that the compound exhibited. He solved these problems in parallel with execution of the dosage form development, analytical and bioanalytical methods development, active and dosage form manufacture, investigational new drug (IND) filing, and implementation of a stability program.

At ILEX Oncology, Dr. McDonough was responsible for establishing a contract drug development service to cover method development and validation, formulation, quality control, synthesis and process development, and cGMP manufacturing. He wrote standard operating procedures (SOPs) and setup the cleaning, and installation and operational qualification programs. He established a stability program and a finished dosage development and manufacturing service, and transitioned from an academic drug development company to an aggressive contract research organization. He was directly involved with the filing of seven IND applications and multiple IND updates. These INDs included cytotoxic oncolytics, antivirals, and chemoprevention agents; updates included dosage form, analytical, and process changes.

At Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Bulk Analgesics & Acylation Chemicals Division, Dr. McDonough was head of a team with global membership to develop a novel technology for production of specialized nonionic surfactants. He also developed commercial chemical processes for advanced intermediates from a 4-hydroxyacetophenone platform. In the Bulk Pharmaceuticals and Intermediates Section, he led a team that transferred technology and troubleshot the implementation of a new process for Coumadin, an anticlotting agent. He also led teams for production of Pemoline, an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder drug, and Clonazepam, an antiepileptic drug.

Dr. McDonough is a member of the editorial board for Military Medical Science Letters, a national professional journal for military doctors, published through the Faculty of Military Health Sciences, University of Defence.

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega has focused on covering Latin American science, a beat that's chronically underreported in English language publications. His work has been published in Science, SciDev.Net, WWF, and Scientific American. He also collaborates with the Mexican Network of Science Journalists, and has been the recipient of fellowships provided by the National Association of Science Writers and the Marine Biological Laboratory.

Before joining the Post, Chris Mooney worked at Mother Jones, where he wrote about science and the environment and hosted a weekly podcast. He spent a decade prior to that as a freelance writer, podcaster and speaker, with his work appearing in WIRED, Harper’s, Slate, Legal Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, The Post and The Boston Globe, to name a few. He has also published four books about science and climate change.

Dr. Morris is a structural geologist with research experience in the quantitative analysis of rock deformation. He has studied deformed rocks at large and small scales in various locations around the world. He was an assistant professor of geology at Wayne State University in Detroit and later a full professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In the course of his research Dr. Morris led several wilderness expeditions to the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard.

Consulting work for the energy industry includes experience around the world: the Arctic, French Alps, Appalachians, the Basin and Range Province and Colorado Plateau of the western United States, Balcones fault zone of Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, Colombia, offshore Vietnam, offshore Turkey, and the Arabian Gulf.

He is the originator and coauthor of the 3DStress™ computer program for interactive analysis of the effects of stresses and fluid injection on faults and fractures, and which received an R&D-100 award from R&D Magazine, designating it as one of the world’s 100 most significant technical accomplishments.

Scott Niekum directs the Personal Autonomous Robotics Lab (PeARL) at the University of Texas and is a core faculty member in the interdepartmental robotics group. Prior to joining UT Austin, Niekum was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. He received his PhD in computer science in September 2013 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, under the supervision of Andrew Barto. His research interests include learning from demonstration, robotic manipulation, human-robot interaction, time-series analysis, and reinforcement learning.

Shannon Palus is a freelance journalist and writer for the Wirecutter. Before that, she covered mistakes and misconduct in science as the staff reporter for Retraction Watch. Her work has also appeared in/on Discover, Popular Science, Slate, the Atlantic, and others.

Alan Peterson is a board certified clinical health psychologist, the Aaron and Bobbie Elliott Krus Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, and Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine within the Department of Psychiatry and School of Medicine at the University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at San Antonio. He is the Associate Director of Research for the Military Health Institute at the UT Health Science Center. He is also a Research Health Scientist at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System and a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the Director of the STRONG STAR Consortium and the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD. These two consortia include over 150 research collaborators and 30 institutions worldwide. He served previously as the Chair of the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Clinical Health Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at Wilford Hall Medical Center. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2005 after 21 years of active duty service including deployments in support of Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. He has clinical and research expertise in the areas of behavioral medicine, psychological trauma, and resiliency. Since arriving at the UT Health Science Center in 2005, he and his colleagues have secured over $138 million in peer-reviewed research funding to support applied clinical research in San Antonio, throughout Texas, and worldwide.