Carlton R. Pennypacker is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and is the principal investigator for the Hands On Universe project. Dr. Pennypacker has been motivated by the power and potential of student and scientist partnerships when teachers and students started discovering supernovae in the Hands On Universe project. Some of his discoveries have been featured in the news media He was awarded the Prix Jules Janssen of the French Astronomical Society in 2010.