Get to Know Us a Little Better

Neela Rajendra, Co-Founder

Neela spent the last four years as an executive focused on improving team performance, developing stronger leaders, and fostering a more inclusive workplace at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  As Chief Team Excellence and Employee Success Officer, she supported team effectiveness, employee development, and a culture that reflected JPL’s values across all missions.

Neela joined JPL in 2021 as Chief Inclusion Officer, a role in which she established the Office of Inclusion and led the development of data-driven solutions to support a safe, inclusive, and exciting workplace; supported the wellness of JPL systems and culture; and documented best practices to share with the broader space exploration ecosystem.

Before JPL, Neela was Executive Director and co-founder of the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI), where she built an organization of over 100 social scientists and 15 partner companies, including BlackRock, GE, and Google, to advance evidenced-based approaches for selecting and promoting the best talent. 

Paul Propster, Co-Founder

Paul Propster was the Founder and Chief Story Architect of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab’s StoryLab. StoryLab is NASA’s first “story accelerator” that uses the tools and language of storytelling to communicate JPL's impact on humanity.

Paul’s 10.5 year mission at NASA/JPL began with capturing nearly $200M in mission funding his first 2 years, winning a $1.5M project award from NASA HQ to teach diverse communities about proposal writing, developing and delivering JPL’s first Strategic Plan in over 10 years, co-creating a workshop for subject matter experts to become “credible messengers”, and in the end help capture billions of dollars for missions and was recognized with four “Voyager” awards and five “Team” awards.

With more than 25 years in strategic communications across small to large businesses, Paul has been a business keynote speaker and guest lecturer at several universities sharing on the power of narrative thinking.

Jeffrey Flory, Co-Founder

Jeffrey Flory is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College. His research uses lab and field experiments to study workplace diversity, pay gaps across gender, race, and age, and how different incentives influence employee behavior. His work provides organizations with practical, evidence-based strategies while contributing to key debates in economics.

He is the co-founder and research director of the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI), where he leads research projects with companies such as Google, GE, and UKG to advance workforce goals using field experiments.

Professor Flory has advised U.S. and international NGOs, foreign governments, multilateral aid agencies, and major corporations—designing experiments that inform policy and deepen our understanding of human behavior. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the World Bank, DFID, and the Low Institute of Political Economy, and featured in outlets such as Time Magazine, ABC News, Freakonomics, and Science Daily.

David Delgado, Co-founder

David Delgado's work explores imagination and empathy as a force that expands human perception and reveals our connection to life on Earth and the cosmos. A former visual and cultural strategist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, David has shaped projects ranging from education initiatives, to new mission proposals, to public art/science installations. 

His career highlights include Visions of the Future, a NASA poster series imagining travel to real exoplanets; Orbit Pavilion, a sound sculpture that allows visitors to hear NASA satellites passing overhead; and Blended Worlds, a collaboration with Getty PST: Art & Science Collide, exploring how tools of connectedness can expand the ways we relate to the unknown as we explore.

David continues to create work through David Delgado Studio, an evolving practice that unites artistic vision, science data and cultural meaning to help people see the world through a lens of curiosity and care.