Joe Tatarewicz, associate professor of history, and history alumna Maura Mackowski '96 speak today as part of a two-day conference honoring NASA's first 50 years.

Tatarewicz, the director of UMBC's Human Context of Science and Technology Program, is an expert on the history of science and technology, public history and policy. He worked for eight years as a Smithsonian museum curator and has written extensively about space. Mackowski has studied the history of NASA's women astronaut program and is an expert in the comparative history of twentieth-century science/technology/medicine, particularly space exploration.

"NASA's First 50 Years: A Historical Perspective Conference," will be broadcast live via streaming video by NASA TV.