Retired NASA Astronaut and University of Missouri Professor Emerita Linda Godwin, Ph.D., will be the featured speaker at the State Historical Society of Missouri annual meeting and My Missouri lecture Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Center for Missouri Studies, 605 Elm St., Columbia. The annual meeting begins at 10:30 a.m., followed by lunch at noon and Godwin’s talk at 1 p.m. The public is invited to attend. Reservations are required for the luncheon and lecture and can be made online at shsmo.org.
Free workshops are also available before the annual meeting from 9:30-10:30 a.m., which includes a brief introduction to oral history and hints to make your genealogical research more effective.
A native of Jackson, Missouri, Godwin earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Southeast Missouri State University and a master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Missouri, where she conducted research in low-temperature condensed matter physics. Godwin joined NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1980, working in Payload Operations. She served as a flight controller and payloads officer in Mission Control before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1985. A veteran of four space shuttle missions, Godwin has logged over 38 days in space. During her NASA career, she also served as deputy chief of the Astronaut Office and as acting deputy director of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate. Godwin returned to the University of Missouri in 2011 as a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She is now professor emerita.
The My Missouri lecture series features prominent Missourians who reflect on how the state’s history, people, and culture have shaped their lives. Prior lectures in this series include University of Missouri basketball coaching legend Norm Stewart; World Wide Technology Founder and Chairman David Steward; Peter Herschend, who cofounded Silver Dollar City and owns Herschend Family Entertainment; and Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt.