NASA Scientist Gardner Continues Futurism Series March 16

SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University’s spring Futurism Culture Events Series continues Tuesday, March 16, with Dr. Jonathan Gardner, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Center and deputy senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. He speaks on “Finding Our Origins With the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes” at 7 p.m. in Holloway Hall Auditorium.

Gardner began studying astronomy at Harvard University, spending his summers as a laboratory assistant at Goddard. After graduating from Harvard he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. During his six years in Honolulu he spent more than 100 nights on the frigid summit of the Mauna Kea Observatory, studying cosmology and galaxy evolution using infrared detectors being tested for use in the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1992, he won a NATO fellowship to continue his research at the University of Durham in northern England. He returned to Goddard in 1996, just before astronauts installed the infrared detectors in the Hubble. His newest endeavor, the Webb Space Telescope, is designed to study galaxy formation and evolution in the infrared, reaching backward in time to detect and identify the first light from stars and galaxies in the universe’s early history. It is scheduled for launch in 2011 as part of the NASA Origins Program, which also includes the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

The Office of Cultural Affairs and Museum Programs sponsors Gardner’s talk. The lecture is free and the public is cordially invited. For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.