Students in the Math Club at Hagerstown Community College are sponsoring a live-stream viewing of the NASA Gerald Soffen Lecture Series on Wed., Nov. 14, at 7 p.m., in the Student Center. This event is free and is open to the public.
About the Lecture
The lecture "Reaching for the Stars: Space Exploration and Humanity's Quest to Understand Everything" by Dr. Dave Leisawitz explores how U.S. space science endeavors have practical and sometimes hidden benefits, and can be inspiring, but fundamentally they are a manifestation of human nature, and something in which we can all take pride.
Using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission as an example, I'd like to bring a space mission "down to Earth." My goals are to demystify the machines that help us answer some of the deepest questions we've thought to ask, to share the joy of scientific discovery, and to shed a bit of light on the path that lies ahead.
About Dr. Leisawitz
Dr. Leisawitz received a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Texas at Austin, with Dr. Frank Bash as advisor, and then moved to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a National Research Council postdoc to analyze data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) with Dr. Michael Hauser. Along the way, he became COBE Deputy Project Scientist and adopted Dr. John Mather as a mentor. Working with John and others, including Dr. Ned Wright, Dave developed concepts for far-infrared interferometers. He is Principal Investigator for the Wide-field Imaging Interferometry Testbed, and served as PI for a study of the Space Infrared Interferometric Telescope (SPIRIT) mission concept and as Goddard study lead for the Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of Cosmic Structure (SPECS). In 2006, he became Chief of the Science Proposal Support Office at Goddard.
Links:
[1] http://hagerstowncc.edu/sites/default/files/thumbnails/Nasa-logo_1.gif
[2] http://hagerstowncc.edu/sites/default/files/featureImages/Nasa-logo_1.gif
