Space scientist Kathryn Flanagan to deliver 2008 McDonnell Lecture March 27

March 20, 2008 -- Kathryn Flanagan, Ph.D., senior scientist and head of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, will deliver the 2008 McDonnell Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 27, in Room 214 Wilson Hall on the Danforth Campus at Washington University in St. Louis.

Flanagan will speak on "The James Webb Space Telescope: A Window to the Past." Sponsored by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Scientist Kathryn Flanagan, an expert in space mission development and instrument engineering, will speak on the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013.

Flanagan is responsible for the development and operations of the JWST Science and Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute, located in Baltimore, Md.

Formerly a member of the science research staff at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Flanagan has worked on NASA flight instruments for the Einstein Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the future mission Constellation-X.

Prior to earning her Ph.D., Flanagan worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching math and physics in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also served as director for education and public outreach for MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Flanagan has participated in NASA's advisory structure, co-chairing strategic planning documents and serving on the Astrophysics Subcommittee. She recently joined the Space Telescope Science Institute to lead the JWST mission office.

While at WUSTL, Flanagan also will meet with 50 St. Louis-area high school students and teachers as part of the university's science outreach efforts.

Flanagan earned her bachelor's and doctoral degrees in physics at MIT, where she began working in the field of X-ray astronomy, with a special interest in supernova remnants and the development of new instruments for space. She also holds a master's degree in physics from New York University.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope scheduled for launch in 2013. It will study every phase in the history of the universe, ranging from the first galaxies formed by the Big Bang to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets to our own solar system. The Webb Telescope will detect star clusters formed from some of the universe's first stars, giving it the nickname "the first-light machine."

The telescope's instruments are being designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.

JWST will have a large mirror measuring 21 feet in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. The telescope will reside in an orbit about 1 million miles from the Earth.

WUSTL's McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences supports and stimulates scientists to work on fundamental problems in space sciences and astro-particle physics, transcending borders between scientific disciplines.

For more information, contact Jan Foster at (314) 935-5332 or at janf@physics.wustl.edu.