Audrey Powers Submitted photo
The University of Southern Maine Senior College, 51 Westminster St. in Lewiston, plans to hold a Zoom presentation of its Food for Thought program, featuring astronaut Audrey Powers at 4 p.m. Friday, June 3.
Powers is the vice president of Mission and Flight Operations and Training, vehicle maintenance and launch complex infrastructure at Launch Site One, according to a news release from the college. She is also an astronaut, having flown on the second human flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepherd program, NS-18.
Previously, she served as vice president of legal and compliance for Blue Origin, overseeing a wide variety of legal matters including regulatory affairs, legislative and policy matters, supplier and customer negotiations and management, maritime law, crisis response, and legal operations.
Powers received a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1999 and worked as an engineer for almost 10 years prior to becoming a lawyer. As a guidance and controls engineer, she was a flight controller for NASA with 2,000 hours of console time in mission control for the international space station program.
After leaving NASA she supported government satellite programs for Lockheed Martin and received a juris doctor in 2008 from Santa Clara University School of law.
She previously served as chair of the board of directors of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and is the executive sponsor of Blue Origins New Mercury Business Resource Group, which promotes gender diversity in the workforce at Blue Origin.
To attend the Zoom presentation, email laseniorcollege@gmail.com by noon Thursday, June 2. An email link will be sent the morning of the event.
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