James Webb Space Telescope (In-Person)

Dr. Michelle Thaller is the Assistant Director for Science at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.  Michelle has a Bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from Harvard, and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Caltech, Michelle became particularly interested in public outreach and science communication and served as the public outreach lead for the Spitzer Space Telescope at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to Goddard Space Flight Center, where she was the Assistant Director of Science for Communications for six years. 

Michelle is one of the regular hosts of Discovery Science Channel’s “How the Universe Works,” and also hosts the podcast “Orbital Path” on public radio. She has received several high-profile awards for online science journalism and science leadership. In her current role, Michelle represents all of NASA’s science themes—including Earth science and climate change, the sun and space weather, solar system exploration, cosmology and the deep universe.