PULLMAN– Bonnie Dunbar, president and CEO of The Museum of Flight and a former NASA astronaut, will present the Lanning Distinguished Lecture “Human Spaceflight: From Apollo to the New Millennium” Oct. 4 at 3:30 p.m. in CUE 203.
Sponsored by Washington State University College of Engineering and Architecture, the Lanning Lecture is free and open to faculty and students as well as the community at large. A reception will follow.
Dunbar recently retired from the NASA Johnson Space Center where she was associate director of Technology Integration and Risk Management for the Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) of the NASA Johnson Space Center.
SLSD is responsible for astronaut crew health, human health research for space exploration, human factor design of spacecraft and life support requirements.
A NASA mission specialist astronaut and veteran of five space flights, Dunbar has spent more than 50 days in space. She has been the payload commander on two flights, including the first space shuttle docking mission to the Russian space station, Mir. She is recipient of the NASA Space Flight Medal, the NASA Exceptional Leadership Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Dunbar, who holds a doctorate in mechanical/biomedical engineering from the University of Houston, is a member of the National Academy of Engineers.
Dunbar currently heads The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash., which is one of the largest non-profit air and space museums and provides education to nearly 100,000 students per year.
The Lanning Lecture was established in 1988 and is funded by civil engineering alumnus Jack Dillon, ’41. The fund was established to honor his late wife Frances Lanning Dillon. The lecture series aims to augment students’ knowledge of the profession beyond the academic dimension.
