Month: July 2011

Laurie Leshin, Deputy Associate Administrator of Exploration Systems for NASA, will join Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as Dean of the School of Science. Leshin will bring experience as a leader, educator, researcher, and administrator to leadership of the school. Click here for further details.

RPI also announced that it has hired Jon Morse, Director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA, as Associate Vice President for Research. Morse brings experience ranging from academia to NASA and the White House to Rensselaer as a member of the leadership team. Click here for further details.

 

From the earliest beginnings of the National Space and Aeronautics Administration in 1958, Rensselaer graduates, faculty, and students have made their mark on the development of space exploration in the United States. The New York Center for Astrobiology and its members are amongst the many Rensselaer programs and people that have enriched and continue to enrich the field of space research. Some of them are described here.

Doug Whittet’s presentation “Methanol in interstellar ices: The route to complex organic molecules in preplanetary matter” at the From Stars to Life session of the Origins 2011 Conference in Montpellier, France is available as a YouTube video: click here.