Providence, RI [Brown University] – Brown University Library will host a Commencement Forum in the new Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, on Saturday, May 25 at 9am. Professor James W. Head III will present “Postcards from Other Planets.” Utilizing the Lab’s 7X16 foot high definition video wall, Professor Head will lead guests to the mountains of the Moon with Apollo 15, allowing them to see the invisible lunar interior with GRAIL spacecraft gravity data, cross the floor of Gale Crater on Mars with the Curiosity rover, and join Brown planetary geoscientists as they explore the Mars-like Antarctic Dry Valleys for months at a time.
Professor Head is the Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences. He came to Brown University in 1973, following his work with the NASA Apollo program. His current research centers on the processes that form and modify the surfaces, crusts and lithospheres of planets, how these processes vary with time, and how such processes interact to produce the historical record preserved on the planets. Since 1984, Dr. Head convenes the Vernadsky Institute/Brown University microsymposia, held twice yearly in Moscow and Houston. He is a co-investigator for the NASA MESSENGER mission to Mercury and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), as well as the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Mission. He has previously served as an investigator with NASA and Russian Space Missions, such as the Soviet Venera 15/16 and Phobos missions, and the US Magellan (Venus), Galileo (Jupiter), Mars Surveyor, Russian Mars 1996, and Space Shuttle missions.
This talk is free, open to the public, and morning refreshments will be provided. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Digital Scholarship Lab is located on the first floor of the Rock. Enter through the circulation gates, take your first right, and pass through the two glass doors into the Periodicals Reading Room.
The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world.
Contact: Amy Atticks | Amy_Atticks@brown.edu | (401) 863-6913