4/1/97 Contact: Dick Polen, 614-593-2097

Reporters: Kathryn Sullivan will be available for interviews Wednesday, April 9. Contact Kelli Whitlock, 614-593-0383, to arrange a time.

ATHENS, Ohio -- Kathryn Sullivan, a former astronaut and current president and chief executive officer of Ohio's Center of Science and Industry (COSI), will speak at 8 p.m. April 9 in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium on Ohio University's Athens campus.

Sullivan's talk, "From Oceans to Orbit: Perspectives on our Home Planet," is part of the Frontiers in Science Lecture Series, a program that brings internationally known scientists to campus to speak on issues and new developments in science and technology.

Sullivan was a scientist and astronaut at NASA from 1978 to 1992, and became the first woman to perform a spacewalk aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984. She also flew on the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990 and the ATLAS-1 Spacelab flight aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1992.

In 1992, she left NASA for a position as chief scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). While with NOAA, Sullivan coordinated the agency's $500 million research and technology programs in a variety of fields, including climate and global change, satellite remote sensing instrumentation and marine biodiversity.

Sullivan went to Columbus as president and CEO of COSI in April 1996. In her role at the center, Sullivan oversees all activities and programs at the center's current location, and is overseeing the development of a new facility for COSI, which is under development.

In addition to her responsibilities with COSI, Sullivan is also an oceanography systems project officer with the Space and Naval Warfare Command. In this capacity she is involved with the design and procurement of environmental sensors, command and control information systems and tactical decision aids.

Sullivan holds a bachelor's degree in earth sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a doctoral degree in geology from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

Speakers who participate in the Frontiers in Science Lecture Series are noted for their commitment to share their scientific knowledge with people of all ages. The series was established in 1991 by Jeanette Grasselli Brown, an Ohio University graduate and former university trustee, and her husband, Glenn R. Brown, through a contribution to the Ohio University Foundation.