Dr. Laura A. Whitlock

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Photo of Dr. Whitlock?

Dr. Laura A. Whitlock served as the Education and Outreach Director for the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from 1996 until 1999. It was in that position, in 1996, that she created the Imagine the Universe! and StarChild sites. While the Imagine! site is now in the capable hands of her successor at GSFC, StarChild remains under her leadership.

Dr. Whitlock is now an Associate Professor of Physics at Louisiana State University - Shreveport. She is involved with numerous K-12 science education projects in addition to her teaching load.

Dr. Whitlock received a BS with honors from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), and a PhD in Physics from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She was given the title of Honorary Master Teacher by the National Teacher Training Institute in 1998.

Dr. Whitlock has received numerous awards and fellowships including: the Southwestern Scholar Award, 1977-1981; the Graduate Fellowship for Women in Non-Traditional Careers, 1981; Who's Who in American Science and Engineering; the USRA Community Service and Education Outreach Award; NASA/GSFC Group Achievment Award (HEASARC); Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Award semi-finalist in both the Children and Education categories, 1998; Webby Award for Best Education Web Site (StarChild), 1998; NASA/GSFC Group Achievement Award (Swift Proposal team).

When not creating, developing, and promoting education and outreach materials (many of which focus on high-energy astronomy and how it probes our Universe), Dr. Whitlock still tries to do scientific research in the area of X-ray binary systems.

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The StarChild site is a service of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), within the Astrophysics Science Division (ASD) at NASA/ GSFC.

StarChild Authors: The StarChild Team
StarChild Graphics & Music: Acknowledgments
StarChild Project Leader: Dr. Laura A. Whitlock
Curator: J.D. Myers
Responsible NASA Official: Amber Straughn

This site is currently under construction to become 508 compliant.