Harvard Club of SF - Annual Dinner with NASA Kepler Mission June 9, 2011

Thursday June 9, 6-9 p.m.

On February 2nd 2011, NASA answered a question that humankind has pondered for centuries: "Are there other Earths?" The Kepler Mission, an orbiting telescope launched less than two years ago, has already discovered 1,235 new planets around other suns, and in February, NASA announced that five of these planets are rocky earth-sized worlds in the habitable zone of their suns, where liquid water could exist.

The HCSF 2011 Public Service Leader of the Year Award will be presented to Kepler Mission Head Scientist, William Borucki. Mr. Borucki was not only the scientific visionary behind Kepler, he also lobbied for decades to get the project off the ground while others dismissed the possibility of discovering extrasolar planets as science fiction. Every new planet discovered by Kepler is a vindication of his life's work, and thanks to him, we are lucky to be in the first generation of humans to know that our solar system is not alone.

The HCSF 2011 Education Leader of the Year Award will be presented to Sara Martinez Tucker, who most recently served as Under Secretary of Education where she was the nation's top higher-education official overseeing all policies and programs related to postsecondary education, adult education and federal student aid. Earlier, Mrs. Tucker worked for nine years as the CEO and President of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) where she raised $280m for scholarships and launched programs to raise college expectations in Latino communities. Prior to her work in education, Mrs. Tucker spent 16 years at AT&T where she led a $400m division to its highest profit levels and became the first Latina to reach the company's executive level. She will speak about the role the federal government plays in readying citizens for an increasingly competitive global market.

Official Website: http://www.harvardclubsf.org/article.html?aid=291