Welcome to our ongoing series of virtual author talks in partnership with the Library Speakers Consortium! Each month, enjoy talks and interactive Q&A sessions with bestselling-authors streamed live. Recordings will be available for viewing after live events.

Join us for an exhilarating journey through the history of US women astronauts with Valerie Neal, emerita curator from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and expert on human spaceflight.

Click on the link below to register, submit your questions for the author, and receive your unique link to join the discussion:

https://libraryc.org/midlibrary/145419

About the Author: Valerie Neal is a space historian and Curator Emerita at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Her specialty is human spaceflight, space technology, and space science in the Space Shuttle era and beyond. At the Museum, she collected more than 1500 artifacts of the shuttle era, curated three exhibitions and eight documentary programs for the Smithsonian Channel (cable TV), published books and articles growing from her research, lectured in the USA and abroad, and gave many interviews for US and international media. 

Before joining the Museum, she was a writer and editor for some 25 NASA publications on Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, the Hubble Space Telescope and other Great Observatories, space science, and NASA History. She participated in underwater astronaut training in Alabama and mission support in Houston for four Space Shuttle missions. She has taught American Studies and writing courses at multiple universities. Valerie Neal holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in American Studies and a B.A. degree in English and History.

Thanks to the Friends of the Middleton Public Library for sponsoring this series.