Dr. Stern completed a master's degree in aerospace engineering and then spent seven years as an aerospace systems engineer, concentrating on spacecraft and payload systems at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Martin Marietta Aerospace, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado.

Dr. Stern has numerous technical papers and 50 popular articles. He has given over 100 hundred technical talks and dozens of popular lectures and speeches about astronomy and the space program. He has written two books, The U.S. Space Program After Challenger and Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System.

Dr. Stern's research has focused on studies of our solar system's distant Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, New Horizons' eventual targets.

In 1995 he was selected to be a Space Shuttle mission specialist finalist. In 2007 he was tapped to be NASA's Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate . He resigned from that position after nearly a year, it is said, because of conflicting funding philosophies. He is currently on the short list to replace the outgoing Michael Griffin as NASA administrator.

Dr. Stern's interests include hiking, camping, gardening , and writing. He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with both powered and sailplane ratings. He and his wife Carole have two daughters and a son.

His talk will concern the New Horizons mission progress and Pluto's new non-status a a planet.

TIME: 1:00 PM Friday Talks 2 Admission $10