Media Contacts:
Dr. Mohammad Noori, 919/515-2368
Paul K. Mueller, News Services, 919/515-3470

Dec. 13, 2002

NASA Scientists to Brief Campus Leaders on Aerospace Consortium

A team of scientists from NASA will visit North Carolina State University at 11 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 16, to brief university leaders on the benefits of the new National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) consortium, which NC State has joined. The briefing will be held in room 136 of the Engineering Graduate Research Center (EGRC) on Centennial Campus.

The meeting is open to the public, and media attendance is welcomed.

Speaking for NASA will be Dr. Charles Harris, the program director of the NIA Initiative at Langley Research Center, and Dr. Bob Whitehead, the interim president of the institute.

NASA recently created the NIA to conduct cutting-edge research, develop new technologies and provide educational opportunities. The institute is a joint venture between NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and the newly formed National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIAA), which is composed of state universities and a nonprofit organization.

The NIA will be housed at Langley to facilitate agency collaboration. Langley's partners, under the umbrella organization NIAA, include NC State; the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation; the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; the University of Virginia; the University of Maryland, College Park; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro; and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

The briefing is sponsored by the College of Engineering, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, the departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, the North Carolina Space Institute and the North Carolina Space Grant Consortium.

-30-