Shorecrest Women in STEM presents NASA Night, an evening of interviews and engaging talks by former NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and UW Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor and Chair Dr. Kristi Morgansen. Learn about spacewalks, underwater missions, space systems, astronomy, and current space exploration. If you are interested in NASA, aerodynamics, astronautics, astronomy, engineering, what it takes to be a professor, career development, or geology, this event is for you. We will have concessions and complementary NASA items and a special surprise will be in store for all attendees at the end! Space enthusiasts of all ages and genders are welcome, bring friends and family!

This event is free and open to the public. Please register in advance if attending.

6:30 - 6:40 - Introduction

6:45 - 7:05 - Dr. Kristi Morgansen Talk

7:10 - 7:30 - Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger Talk

7:35 - 7:45 - Intermission

7:45 - 8:10 - Interview & Discussion with Guest Speakers

8:10 - 8:25 - Audience Q&A

8:25 - 8:30 - Closing

Dorothy "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger is a retired American astronaut. After attending Whitman College, she received her teaching certification from Central Washington University, and she went on to teach for five years at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, WA. In addition to teaching, she coached cross country and Science Olympiad. In June of 2004, she joined NASA and the Astronaut Corps. After several years of training, she was assigned to the STS-131 crew, an International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission, and flew as Mission Specialist 2. She also served as a robotic arm operator, the Intra-vehicular crew member, and a transfer crew member. The mission lasted fifteen days. During June of 2012, Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger commanded the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation (NEEMO) in the Aquarius Reef Habitat off the Florida coast. The underwater mission sought to develop techniques for working at an asteroid, while working under a 100-second time delay. In June of 2014, Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger retired from the Astronaut Corps and returned to the Pacific Northwest with her family. She finished her MS in geology at the University of Washington, and she joined the environmental consulting firm, Geosyntec. She continues to speak and promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education.

Dr. Kristi Morgansen is a Professor and Chair of the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington. Prof. Morgansen’s research focuses on guidance, navigation, control for autonomous underwater, surface, air and space systems. In particular, her work addresses nonlinear systems where sensing and actuation are integrated, stability in switched systems with delay, and incorporation of operational constraints such as communication delays in control of multi-vehicle systems. Kristi Morgansen received a BS and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, respectively in 1993 and 1994, an S.M. in Applied Mathematics in 1996 from Harvard University and a PhD in Engineering Sciences in 1999 from Harvard University. Until joining the University of Washington, she was first a postdoctoral scholar then a senior research fellow in Control and Dynamical Systems at the California Institute of Technology. She joined the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the summer of 2002, and received an NSF CAREER Award in 2003 and the 2010 O. Hugo Schuck Award for Best Paper in the Theory Category in the 2009 American Control Conference.