Imagining Tomorrow: Alternate Energy Futures

The Foresight Project was founded in 2006 to bring the successful creative writing program Imagining Tomorrow to a wider audience.  The Board of Directors consists of Mary Essary, President and Executive Director, Marion Kelly Greenup, Secretary, and Dr. Renee Hobbs, Director. 

We are in the process of expanding and developing the Board, working with the Institute for Non-Profit Development at Mt. Wachusett College. 

Mary Fullenkamp Essary: President and Executive Director

Ms. Essary has more than fifteen years experience in sales and marketing in the photonics industry.  She began her career at Coherent Inc., Palo Alto, CA, and then moved to Massachusetts to establish a sales force for Lambda Physik, U.S., a subsidiary of Coherent.   After ten years she rejoined the industry, working first as Manager of Technical Sales for IPG Photonics, a fiber laser company located in Oxford, MA, and then as President and General Manager of FemtoLasers, Inc., a U.S. subsidiary that she established for an Austria-based laser company.  In the course of her professional career she worked with research scientists and engineers in a wide range of fields at government, university, and corporate labs across North America, including UC Berkeley, MIT, the University of Chicago, JPL, NASA, and the National Research Council of Canada.  While at FemtoLasers, she co-authored two articles on Ultrafast Lasers: Ultrafast Dips into the Attosecond Region and Chirped Pulsed Oscillators Repair Photomasks.

At the beginning of 2006 she left to focus on the clean energy industry, developing and creating the educational program, IMAGINGING TOMORROW.

Her technical training includes a degree in chemistry from Loyola University in New Orleans, and graduate work in biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became interested in system dynamics after investigating the rain/drought cycles in the Bay Area.   In addition, she has participated in professional training and is a member of the MIT Enterprise Forum. 

She has two adopted children, and wrote How We Found Our Family: A Book About Adoption for them.  She was a resident of Harvard, MA for many years, serving as PTA president for three years, and on the Planning Board for nine years; three years as Chair.  She currently lives in Ayer, Massachusetts. 

Marion Kelly Greenup: Secretary

Marion Greenup is Vice President for Administration for the Simons Foundation in New York City. She is responsible for developing and managing administrative systems and policies to support the Foundation’s programs.

Ms. Greenup earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Harriet Sophie Newcomb College, a Masters of Arts in Education in Early Childhood Development from Tulane University, and a Masters of Public Health from Columbia University School of Public Health. She has worked in health and university administration for over 20 years.

Prior to joining the Simons Foundation, Ms. Greenup was the Administrative Director of the New York University Child Study Center and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  Previous appointments include Assistant Vice President of Administration at Columbia University Health Sciences and Department Administrator of Pediatrics at Columbia University.  She also served as Senior Vice President of Education and Health Promotion at the March of Dimes, where she led the development of educational programs for consumers and health professionals and managed an annual budget exceeding $15 million.

Dr. Renee Hobbs: Director

Dr. Hobbs provides consulting services in the areas of media literacy curriculum development, design and implementation; youth media production and student journalism programs; program evaluation of media and technology use in education; and effects of media on children and youth. 

Dr. Hobbs has been working in the field of media literacy for over twenty years and is the author of many publications, including her new book, Teaching Media in the High School.  She received her doctorate in Education from Harvard University and was an associate professor at Babson College in the Department of Communication before moving to Philadelphia.

She now directs the Media Education Lab at Temple University and is a co-founder of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA), the national membership organization that hosts the National Media Education Conference. She co-directed the Ph.D. program in Mass Media and Communication at Temple University in 2004-2005 and currently hosts the Media Smart Seminars, a free professional development program for Philadelphia educators, media professionals and community leaders.