Category: Presenters

Ronald Held has a Ph. D in astrophysics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As a fan since TOS, Star Tek has inspired his research and presentation topics.

Andrew Liptak is a writer and historian from Vermont. He is the Public Relation and Guest Services Coordinator for the Vermont Historical Society, and is the author Cosplay: A History (Saga Press, June, 2022). Liptak has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, appearing in places such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Gizmodo, Grist, io9, Kirkus Reviews, Lifehacker, OneZero, Pando Daily, Polygon, Slate, Tor.com, Uncanny Magazine, VentureBeat, The Verge, and other publications. He currently writes Transfer Orbit, a newsletter about the intersection of speculative fiction and real life.

Dr. Matthew Szydagis grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation and after watching Lt. Cmdr. Data he realized that science officer was the position for him. He received his B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2005, 2006, and 2011 respectively, then continued his work in physics as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Davis (2010-14).

Since 2014, Dr. Szydagis has been a member of the physics faculty at the University at Albany SUNY, pursuing experimental particle astrophysics, in particular direct laboratory detection of dark matter particles, underground. He works on the liquid-Xenon-based LZ experiment and with supercooled water (the “snowball chamber”), and is the developer of the NEST (Noble Element Simulation Technique) computer software.

Since 2019 Matthew has also been a member of UAPx, helping to seek answers regarding the true nature of UAP from a scientific perspective. Most recently, you can find him as a regular on the History Channel TV show “The Proof is Out There” and in the documentary film “A Tear in the Sky.”

I have been a Star Trek fan for life and a collector for almost as long. James was good enough to invite me to Trekonderoga to talk about all the stuff I’ve collected over the decades and to share some of the stories behind those collectibles. I have two Star Trek Web sites: CollectingTrek.ca tells the stories behind my best collectibles and TorontoStarTrek76.ca is the definitive history of Canada’s first and best Star Trek convention. Let’s talk about Star Trek collecting.