CEO/President, General Counsel

James Arrowood, JD

James Arrowood started working with Alcor in 2015 as outside General Counsel and has helped Alcor successfully navigate through various complex legal and related business matters. James served for several years on the board of directors for a major local non-profit and as the public relations chair. He has served in various other public relations/press information positions over the decades. James has appeared numerous times as an expert on emerging technologies, both in print articles and television news appearances, including segments on PBS and all the major television networks. He taught the Arizona State Bar course on emerging technologies and is a published author on medical-legal issues. James has his Juris Doctorate from the University of Notre Dame (2002) and several undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Irvine, as well as numerous professional certifications and bar admissions. 

Chief Operating Officer

Marji Klima, MBA, CNP

Marji Klima joined the Alcor team in May 2013 assuming an administrative position and presently serves as the Chief Operating Officer. Her diverse responsibilities encompass administrative oversight across membership services, marketing, office management, coordination of patient care, and technical operations.

Before joining Alcor, Marji established and managed a thriving medical transcription business in the Phoenix area for over two decades. During this time, she collaborated closely with physicians and their teams to ensure the accuracy and confidentiality of medical records. In her role as a business owner, Marji spearheaded IT management, payroll, accounting, and the recruitment of a skilled workforce. She also played a pivotal role in expanding the client base while maintaining strict confidentiality standards in document management systems.

In addition to her professional pursuits, Marji is a certified fitness instructor with a diverse background in Yoga, Pilates, and Spin. Her academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in education and special education, with a minor in biological sciences. Marji holds a Master of Business Administration enhancing her strategic proficiency in organizational management. She is also a Certified Non-profit Professional, further demonstrating her dedication to excellence across various fields.

Office Manager

Ashley Bettini

Ashley Bettini joined Alcor in January 2019 as an Administrative Assistant. Her duties include assisting the Executive Administrator in filing paperwork, handling mail and emails, welcoming visitors to Alcor, and other administration work. Ashley graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Nonprofit Organizational Leadership and Management in May 2018. She is originally from California and much of her experience is working in the nonprofit sector in various fields. She has volunteered in the medical field, animal sanctuaries, children’s museum, and organized and ran a one day conference with fellow students while attending ASU.

Director of Special Projects

Linda Chamberlain

Linda Chamberlain is one of the co-founders of Alcor (Alcor Life Extension Foundation) and served as its first CEO. She and her husband, Fred Chamberlain III, started Alcor in 1972. Fred, together with his father and Linda’s mother, are all currently cryopreserved at Alcor.

After Fred was cryopreserved in 2012, Linda decided to come out of retirement and returned to Alcor full time in 2016. She is currently engaged in two projects. One is the writing of the medical case report for each patient and the other is helping Alcor members set up funding trusts and revival trusts. It is Linda’s desire to be close to her family and do whatever she can to protect them and help bring them back into her life as soon as possible.

Linda has two published works on the subject of cryonics. The first, LifeQuest, compiled in the 1970s, contains short stories written by Linda, Fred and others about cryonics, mind cloning and other transhuman adventures. In the 1990s, Linda wrote a cryonics novel called Star Pebble, available on amazon.com.

Director of Membership

Diane Cremeens

As Director of Membership, Diane’s primary responsibility is assisting applicants in becoming Alcor members. In addition to explaining Alcor’s services to prospective clients, she also serves as the liaison between existing Alcor members and the organization by keeping the membership files updated and monitoring membership status issues such as funding.

Before coming to Alcor, Diane owned her own sewing business, “The Sewing Room”. She belonged to the North Valley Business Network, a group of small businesses in her local area. She networked to gain business leads and exchange business experience with other local business owners.

From 1989 to 1998 Diane worked for Community Care Network (CCN), a medical insurance company. Diane started out in the Provider Contracting department, working with physicians, hospitals and other medical facilities. She eventually moved up to Office Manager. She worked with six department heads and made sure everyone had what they needed to complete their jobs, from office supplies to computer equipment.

Medical Response Director

Shelby L. Calkins, BSN, RN

Shelby Calkins is Alcor’s Medical Response Director. She has a background in emergency first response and fire service, trauma and neurological critical care, and home health with case management (just to name a few), giving her the wide range of medical skills and knowledge for performing the MRD role. She has her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and is obtaining her Master of Science in Nursing Education (MSN-Ed) in Spring 2023. Shelby was born and raised in Arizona, grew up around rodeo and ranching, and has a family of her own. Her passions include patient advocacy, therapeutic communication and care, and education across the lifespan and healthcare continuum.

Shelby writes: “I am very honored and excited to be chosen to join the already amazing, innovative, and intelligent team at Alcor Life Extension Foundation. My passion for nursing began with a passion for human life, and that has helped me lead a very healthy nursing career where patient advocacy was at the forefront of every single decision. I am very pleased to be (back) at Alcor, especially in a role that allows me to interact with our wonderful members and assist them in their journey with cryonics.”

Manager of Engineering

Jacob Graber

Jacob Graber has worked for Alcor both as a volunteer and as a part-time employee since 2012. Jacob was officially brought onto the Alcor team as the Manager of Engineering in January 2020. His duties revolve around the research, development, and improvement of cryopreservation equipment and techniques. Jacob works to ensure that Alcor adopts and adheres to modern and secure practices in everyday work as well as in the long-term safety and handling considerations for preserved patients.

Jacob graduated from ASU’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy (SEMTE) in 2019 with his Master’s in Material Science and Engineering. As a graduate student, he worked for two years in ASU’s 4D Materials Science Center (4DMS) investigating the behavior of metals under various stimuli using a broad range of characterization techniques. He brings his research experience with x-ray computed tomography (CT) reconstruction and analysis, and is the primary operator of Alcor’s on-site CT scanner.

Director of Innovation

Steve Graber

Steve Graber became Alcor’s Technical & Readiness Coordinator in July 2010. In this role, he works with Alcor’s Transport Coordinator to perform standbys, postmortem stabilization, and transport of Alcor patients to Alcor’s cryopreservation facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Steve is also responsible for purchasing, inventorying, and maintaining supplies and equipment necessary for cryonics procedures at remote locations and at Alcor’s Scottsdale facility. Additionally, he participates in training and outfitting regional groups around the world that assist with stabilization and transport of Alcor patients. Utilizing his design and fabrication skills, Steve will also work with Alcor’s Research Fellow, Equipment Fabricator, and R&D Committee to design, construct, test, and validate new procedures and equipment.

Steve graduated with a degree in Architecture and Fine art from Goshen College. His background and expertise are widely varied, with practical and managerial experience in many areas. His IT skills range from computer software and hardware design, desktop application programming, 3D animation, video editing and desktop publishing, and CAD design. He is also proficient in automotive design, engineering, manufacturing, and fabrication, having constructed of his own two-seat, mid-engine sports car.

Before joining the Alcor staff, Steve worked as an outside contractor for Alcor for nearly a year. During that time he assisted in nearly all incoming patient cases, including participating in local standby work. He also redesigned and constructed the Alcor emergency response vehicle and produced ISO 9001 compliant SOP documentation for numerous Alcor procedures and equipment.

Research Fellow

Hugh Hixon, Jr.

Hugh commenced employment at Alcor in 1982 as the Facilities Engineer. He is in charge of technology application and development, systems maintenance, and institutional memory research applications. Hugh has participated in a record number of cryopreservations.

Hugh is the inventor of the “crackphone”, a device which determines cracking temperature and degree of cracking, first with glycerol perfusion, and now with new cryoprotectant and vitrification systems. He is the initial fabricator of the Bigfoot Patient Pod System and modified the MVE Bigfoot dewar design for simpler manufacture. Hugh designed and was instrumental in constructing the Patient Care LN2 Bulk Fill System, in addition to conceiving, designing, and constructing the LN2 Vacuum Transfer System and the LN2 Vapor Cloud Extractor. He is the designer and builder of the Mobile Advanced Rescue Cart (MARC), and was involved in the construction of its predecessor, the Cryovita Labs Mobile Advanced Life Support System (MALSS).

Hugh served as a Captain in the United States Air Force from 1965 until 1972 as an Aerospace Munitions Officer. He was stationed at Nellis AFB, Taegu AFB in Korea, and Canon AFB. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Redlands and an M.S. in Biochemistry from California State University at Long Beach. Hugh is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Space Access, and Alcor.

Care Services Manager

R. Michael Perry, PhD

Dr. Perry was hired by Alcor in 1989 following two years of volunteer work at the Foundation. Dr. Perry monitors Alcor’s dewars, provides facility surveillance during off-work hours, and performs writing tasks and computer programming. He has authored or contributed to the automated cooldown and perfusion modeling programs and has maintained the patient log books for many years. He is a regular contributor to Alcor newsletters. He has been a member of Alcor since 1984.

Prior to working at Alcor, Dr. Perry worked as a computer programmer—from 1968 until 1987. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1969 with a B.S. in Mathematics. He received an M.S. in Computer Science from Colorado University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the same institution in 1984.

Dr. Perry is a Director and an ordained minister of the Society for Venturism and performs wedding ceremonies and memorial services for this IRS-recognized, scientific and religious organization. He is also a cofounder and past president of the Society for Universal Immortalism, a group dedicated to the hope that all persons who ever lived will eventually be resurrected through scientific means.

Dr. Perry has authored two books: Toward Self-Optimization of Machine Intelligence (Ph.D. Thesis), Los Osos, CA: Dove Systems, 1984; and Forever for All: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality, Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers, 2000. Prior to his Alcor experience Dr. Perry authored or coauthored several journal papers and technical reports on computerized tomography, for applications ranging from medicine to solar physics.

Professor of Physics

Gregory Benford, PhD

Gregory Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine, where he has been a faculty member since 1971. Benford conducts research in plasma turbulence theory and experiment, and in astrophysics. He has published well over a hundred papers in fields of physics from condensed matter, particle physics, plasmas and mathematical physics, and several in biological conservation.

He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, and has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA and the White House Council on Space Policy. In 1995 he received the Lord Foundation Award for contributions to science and the public comprehension of it.

Benford is the author of over twenty novels, including Jupiter Project, Artifact, Against Infinity, Eater, and Timescape. A two-time winner of the Nebula Award, Benford has also won the John W. Campbell Award, the Australian Ditmar Award, the 1995 Lord Foundation Award for achievement in the sciences, and the 1990 United Nations Medal in Literature.

Assistant Professor

Antonei Csoka, PhD

Dr. Antonei B. Csoka received his B.S. in Genetics from the University of Newcastle, U.K. in 1991, his M.S. in Molecular Pathology and Toxicology from the University of Leicester, U.K. in 1993, and his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Debrecen, Hungary in 1998. He performed postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco, where he cloned the human hyaluronidase genes, which are involved in fertilization, embryonic development, and cancer. As a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University from 2001 to 2003, Dr. Csoka was a key player in the identification of the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (progeria), a disease with many features of “accelerated aging.” It is hoped that the identification of the gene for progeria will provide insights into the mechanisms of normal aging. An assistant professor at Howard University, Dr. Csoka is developing animal models of progeria, studying the role of nuclear lamina dysfunction in human aging, and investigating the potential of stem cells, cellular reprogramming, and epigenetics for the treatment of age-related diseases.

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing

Robert Freitas, JD

Robert A. Freitas Jr., J.D., published the first detailed technical design study of a medical nanorobot ever published in a peer-reviewed mainstream biomedical journal and is the author of Nanomedicine, the first book-length technical discussion of the medical applications of nanotechnology and medical nanorobotics. Volume I was published in October 1999 by Landes Bioscience while Freitas was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) in Palo Alto, California. Freitas published Volume IIA in October 2003 while serving as a Research Scientist at Zyvex Corp., a nanotechnology company headquartered in Richardson, TX during 2000-2004. Freitas co-authored Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines (2004), another first-of-its-kind technical treatise, and as of 2020 had 57 refereed journal publications or contributed book chapters, 20 patents in the fields of nanotechnology and medical nanorobotics, and several web-published books. Freitas won the 2006 Guardian Award from Lifeboat Foundation, the 2007 Foresight Prize in Communication, and the 2009 Feynman Prize in nanotechnology for theory, and now serves as Senior Research Fellow at IMM.

Professor of Electrical Engineering

Bart Kosko, PhD

Dr. Kosko received his bachelors degrees in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Southern California, the masters degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include Adaptive Systems, Fuzzy Theory, Neural Networks, Dynamical Systems, Nonlinear Signal Processing, Intelligent Agents, Smart Materials, and Stochastic Resonance.

He has written seven books, including: Heaven in a Chip, Random House, 2000, Nanotime, Avon Books, 1997, Fuzzy Engineering, Prentice Hall, 1996, Fuzzy Thinking, Hyperion/Disney Books, 1993, Neural Networks for Signal Processing (editor), Prentice-Hall, 1991, and Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems, Prentice-Hall, 1991 (ISBN 0-13-611435-0). He has published over one hundred technical papers.

Dr. Kosko’s technical activities include: Advisory Board: IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, Associate Editor: Information Sciences, Associate Editor: Neural Networks, Associate Editor: Soft Computing Research Journal, Governing Board, International Neural Network Society, Managing Editor, Lecture Notes in Neural Computing (Springer-Verlag monograph series), Co-editor of November 1998 IEEE Proceedings special issue on Intelligent Signal Processing, Program Chairman, 1987 IEEE International Conference on Neural Networks (ICNN-87), Program and Organizing Chairman, ICNN-88, Program Co-Chairman, 1990 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN-90), Program Co-Chairman, 1990 International Fuzzy-Neural Conference (Iizuka-90), Program Co-Chairman, Iizuka-92, Program Co-Chairman, INNS WCNN-93, Program Co-Chairman, INNS WCNN-96, and a former Director of USC’s Signal and Image Processing Institute.

Molecular Nanotechnology Pioneer

James B. Lewis, PhD

Dr. Lewis earned his B.A. degree in Chemistry in1967 from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA., his M.A. in Chemistry, 1968, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA., and his Ph.D.in Chemistry, 1972, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. After his graduate work in RNA biochemistry and structure, Dr. Lewis spent 17 years studying the molecular biology of DNA tumor viruses, with emphasis on the adenovirus oncogenes.

He switched research focus upon joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, first doing some work on HIV proteins, and then spending 6 years working on active immunotherapy for cancer (cancer vaccines). During his last six months at BMS, he switched projects again, returning to molecular virology to begin a project to identify viral protein – cellular protein interactions that are important for the pathogenicity of HIV in the hope that these interactions would prove useful targets for drug screening. He has over 46 research papers published.

Over the past 10 years he has become increasingly interested in the evolution of current technology towards molecular nanotechnology, the anticipated ability to inexpensively fabricate complex molecular machinery having a broad range of capabilities. In his spare time he familiarized himself with the technological and scientific issues at a general level and co-edited two books on the subject: Nanotechnology: Research and Perspectives, BC Crandall and J. Lewis (editors), 1992, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, and Prospects in Nanotechnology: Toward Molecular Manufacturing. M. Krummenacker and J. Lewis (editors). 1995. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto, Singapore.

Director at Alcor Foundation

Ralph C. Merkle, PhD

Dr. Merkle received his B.A. in Computer Science, U.C. Berkeley, 1974, his M.S. Computer Science, U.C. Berkeley, 1977, and his Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford, 1979. Thesis: Secrecy, authentication, and public key systems.

His current research interest is molecular manufacturing (also called nanotechnology). The central objective of molecular manufacturing is the design, modeling, and manufacture of systems that can inexpensively fabricate most products that can be specified in atomic detail.

This would include, for example, molecular logic elements connected in complex patterns to form molecular computers, molecular robotic arms or Stewart platforms (e.g., positional devices) able to position individual atoms or clusters of atoms under programmatic control (useful if we wish to make molecular computers and other molecular manufacturing systems), and a wide range of other molecular devices.

Dr. Merkle is an executive editor of the journal Nanotechnology, (published by IOPP) which publishes a broad range of articles both on molecular manufacturing and nano-scale research in general. He is a former Director of the Foresight Institute and chaired both the Fourth and Fifth Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology, and a member of ACM, ACS, APS, and IEEE. He is also a Director of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Further interests include cryonics, medical applications of nanotechnology, computational chemistry, reversible computing, neuroscience, extropians, and other areas. He is also interested in cryptography (including one-way hash functions and digital signatures based on one-way hash functions).

Dr. Merkle co-invented public key cryptography and received the Kanellakis Award. He has published 46 papers and holds 8 patents.

See video of Dr. Merkle’s presentation on Nanotechnology and Cryonics at the 2006 Alcor Conference.

CEO, United Therapeutics

Martine Rothblatt, PhD

Dr. Rothblatt received a B.A. degree from the University of California in 1977, her M.B.A and Juris Doctor from UCLA Schools of Management and Law in 1981, and her Ph.D. in Medical Ethics from the Royal College of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary College, University of London in 2001. She has extensive experience in information technology development and pharmaceuticals. During 1982 -1995 she held at various times positions as President of Orbital Projects, Inc., President & CEO of Geostar Corporation, Chief Operating Officer of WorldSpace Corporation, and Chairman & CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. From 1996 to the present she has been the Chairman & CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation of Silver Spring, MD, where she initiates and manages programs in cardiopulmonary medicine, virology and neuroscience. Her most recent book, Your Life or Mine:  How Geoethics Resolves the Conflicts Between Public and Private Interests in Xenotransplantation, was published by Ashgate House in 2004.

CEO, AgeX Therapeutics

Michael D. West, PhD

Michael D. West, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular ageing. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to age-related degenerative disease. He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation, and from 1992 to 1998 he held various positions including CEO, Director, and Vice President. From 1998 to 2007, Dr West held positions as CEO, President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT), which was eventually acquired by Astellas Pharma, Inc. From 2007 to 2018, he was CEO/Co-CEO of BioTime, Inc.