The Academy's second Masters with Masters event featured Dr. John Mather and Dennis McCarthy, who shared critical learning experiences related to the Cosmic Background Explorer, the James Webb Space Telescope, and other complex science projects. John Mather and Dennis McCarthy sat down with the Academy's Ed Hoffman in the NASA Auditorium on October 28, 2009 to share stories about leadership, perseverance, learning from mentors, and finding the right team. The discussion focused largely on their work together on the Cosmic Background Explorer, a project with ambitious goals, and cutting-edge technology and science. Mather was the COBE Project Scientist and Principal Investigator for the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer instrument, and McCarthy was the Deputy Project Manager. The groundbreaking science from COBE led to a 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for Mather and Dr. George Smoot of the University of California/Berkeley.