WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Oct. 27, 2009 -- Michelle Thaller, assistant director for science communication at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, will deliver the 2009 Fall Sigma Xi Research Lectures at Williams College. The two-part series is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Nov. 5 and 6. The lectures, which are free and open to the public, will be held at 4:15 p.m. both days in Wege Auditorium in The Science Center.

The first lecture is titled "Galileo's Heretical Observations: A Story of Personalities, Politics, Science, and Dogma," and the second is titled "On the Precipice of a New Universe:  A Review of NASA's Discoveries of the Last Decade."

Thaller's research interests include hot stars, colliding stellar winds, binary star evolution, and evolved stellar companions. She has used both ground and space-based telescopes, including Kitt Peak National Observatory, Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, the International Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Roentgen Satellite.

She divides her time between astronomical research and public education. She is a regular columnist on the Christian Science Monitor and has made numerous television appearances on the History, National Geographic, and Discovery channels.

She received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1992 and her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Center for High Angular Resolution Astrophysics at Georgia State University in 1998. Her dissertation involved the discovery and characterization of colliding stellar winds in several massive binary star systems.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's main campus is located northeast of Washington, D.C. The center is a major U.S. laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. The center manages many of NASA's Earth observation, astronomy, and space physics missions. The center includes several other facilities: the Wallops Flight Facility, The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the Independent Verification and Validation Facility.

Sigma Xi was founded in 1886 as an honor society for science research and engineering. There are nearly 75,000 Sigma Xi members in over 500 chapters at colleges, universities, industrial research centers, and government laboratories. Sigma Xi's mission is to "promote the public's understanding of science for the purpose of improving the human condition."

The Williams Chapter of Sigma Xi, a scientific research society, began at William in 1969. It sponsors two lecture series each year by a faculty member in the science departments.

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Event: Katie Aldrin