About Us
Asterion Foundation™ was founded in 2016 as a not-for-profit corporation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Our mission is to provide astronomy education and outreach programs including but not limited to making micro-grants ($500 to $5,000) for these purposes. We collaborate with other non-profit organizations including schools, universities, libraries, planetaria, observatories and science clubs.
Between July 2023 and October 2023, a number of grant applications were lost to the digital void. We believe that we have corrected the problem but have no way of retrieving these submissions. If you submitted an application anytime in 2023 and did not receive a thorough response, please contact us again. We apologize for the inconvenience. Email: toomey.mike@gmail.com
Our Volunteer Staff
Asterion Foundation is lead by an all-volunteer staff.
Our team of directors is comprised of scientists, educators and other professionals.
Michael Toomey
President
Michael Toomey is a life-long volunteer and philanthropist. He has served in numerous capacities as officer of the Alachua Astronomy Club, docent with the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Lowell Observatory (Flagstaff, Arizona). He currently presents planetarium shows and other informal education programs at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque. Mike also serves as a director on the Toomey Foundation for the Natural Sciences. Mike graduated with a B.S. in Geography from the University of Southern California.
Mike has received numerous awards and special recognitions in the area of astronomy and other natural sciences including multiple service awards from the Alachua Astronomy Club, the Above & Beyond award from the Kika Silva Pla planetarium at Santa Fe College, Gainesville, Florida, and the naming of an asteroid from Lowell Observatory (2012 BJ94 – discoverer L.H. Wasserman).
Janna Underhill
Secretary
Dr. Janna Underhill earned her BS in Zoology in 1990, her MFRC in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation in 1994, her MEd in Student Personnel in Higher Education in 2002, and her PhD in Research and Evaluation Methodology in 2014, each from the University of Florida. Prior to joining the UF College of Engineering as Director of Advising, she spent more than 17 years providing student services and alumni relations for the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Dr. Underhill has won two Superior Accomplishment Awards, two college-level Advisor of the Year awards, and two university-wide Advisor of the Year awards.
Her hobbies include reading, hiking, hunting down vinyl albums from obscure prog-rock bands, watching appallingly bad B-movies from the 50s and 60s, and planning elaborate Halloween yard decorations.
James Albury
Director
James C. Albury began volunteering at the Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium at the age 14. Albury received a degree in Astronomy from the University of Florida, after which he worked for UF’s Office of Academic Technology. In 2009, Albury became the director of the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium at Santa Fe College. He has produced numerous planetarium shows in the 7 years that he has been the planetarium’s director. He has given speeches around the country regarding the challenges and opportunities for public interest in astronomy and astronomical outreach.
He is currently the president-elect of the Southeastern Planetarium Association and is a co-host with Dean Regas of the internationally syndicated PBS show “Star Gazers” (the world’s only weekly program on naked-eye astronomy for the person on the street).
Andy Howell
Director
Dr. Howell is Vice President of the Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc. (formerly president). Andy received his PhD in industrial engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked for three years as a statistical analyst for a manufacturer of automotive wheels and ten years as a lean six sigma consultant with industry and government. Andy has an M.S. from the California Institute of Technology in planetary science and a B.S. in earth and planetary sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Howell teaches physical science as an adjunct professor at Florida Institute of Technology.
Dr. Howell is a retired officer of the U.S. Air Force. He served as a space systems orbital analyst with NORAD / Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado; as a foreign space systems intelligence analyst with Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; and as an assistant professor of operations research at Air Force Institute of Technology. His astronomical experience includes work with the image-processing laboratory at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he produced imagery derived from interplanetary spacecraft and landers.
Karen Walker
Director
Karen hails from New York City where she received her bachelor’s degree in Child Development at the City University of New York. She later moved to Indiana to pursue her master’s in Elementary Education at Indiana State University where she met her future husband, Chad Walker. </o:p
Karen has presented in several national and state conferences for the Association for the Education of Young Children on the topics of early childhood science and math education.
Karen’s work in education began in 1987 when she was employed as a preschool teacher for the Staten Island YMCA and as a computer teacher for the New York Public Library. She worked as a Head Start teacher in Indiana for two years then came to Gainesville, Florida in 1995 where she worked for the University of Florida Research Center for Child Development, served as adjunct instructor of child development for Santa Fe College, and taught elementary education at Alachua Learning Center. She has been teaching at Interlachen Elementary School since 2005 where she currently teaches gifted students in grades K-5.
Karen’s goal is to encourage students to become life-long inquisitive thinkers who grow to become scientifically literate adults. She currently resides in Gainesville, FL, with her husband who is also an educator and science literacy proponent as well as her beloved fur babies, her cats.
Larry Friedberg
Director
Larry Friedberg was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rolling down highway 41. He was later adopted by a troupe of mimes, and spent most of his childhood silently trying to find his way out of an invisible box. When he finally escaped, he attended the illustrious Fordham Clown College.
Larry majored in Bakery Science and minored in Puppeteering, Bagpiping, Viticulture, and Accounting. After college, he accepted a very lucrative position in management with a Scottish winery, helping to bring their special brand of all-marionette musical theater to the stage.
Later he went into business for himself, providing life coaching and vibrato voice lessons to needy children in both London and Gainesville, FL. Larry (aka, Happy the Clown) dazzles his clients by juggling numbers while simultaneously playing his rendition of “Yakety Sax” on the kazoo and riding a sparkly purple unicycle.