Mt. SAC Hosts Kepler Scholarship Event April 14
April 05, 2018 - 02:04 PM
Mt. San Antonio College will host the 9th Annual Kepler Distinguished Lecture and Scholarship Dinner featuring guest lecturer JPL senior research scientist Dr. Bonnie Buratti on Saturday, April 14, 5 p.m., beginning in the college’s dance studio, building 2T, room 121. All proceeds from the event will go to the Mt. SAC Kepler Astronomy Student Scholarship Program.
Dr. Buratti, a planetary astronomer in the Division of Earth and Space Sciences at JPL, will speak on “Exploring the Edge of the Solar System.” She has worked on the Voyager Program, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, and the New Horizons space probe. For her work with the Cassini program, she was awarded the NASA exceptional achievement medal in 2006. In 2015, she was named the NASA project scientist for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission to Comet 67P. She is currently on science team of the New Horizons project, which will explore Pluto and its moons.
Mt. SAC will award the Kepler Scholarship to two astronomy students for their academic work and additional work within the Astronomy Program. The college also awards the Redinger Earth and Space Science Research grant. Mt. SAC’s Astronomy Program affords its own planetarium and observatory with a 23-foot rotating astronomy dome that houses the college’s main 16-inch telescope. The observatory deck also includes six other eight-inch telescopes that are available for students and the public to use.
Tickets for the event, which includes dinner and the feature lecture, are $85 and are available online at http://mtsac.edu/kepler.
For more information, call Mt. SAC Natural Sciences Division Office at (909) 274-4425.
