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LEWISTON – Maine’s marine mammals and space flight are the topics on tap for upcoming Food for Thought presentations by the University of Southern Maine Lewiston/Auburn Senior College.
Lynda Doughty, founding executive director of Marine Mammals of Maine will be the guest at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 30. At 4 p.m. on Monday, June 6, the Food for Thought series will host astronaut Audrey Powers.
Both presentations are via Zoom and are free and open to the public.
Doughty has been with MMoME since 2011. She opened Maine’s first seal triage center, and her work has also involved conducting whale necropsies, disentanglement, population studies, marine debris projects and sterning on lobster boats. She earned a degree in marine science from Maine Maritime Academy and is also on the board of the Phippsburg Land Trust.
Doughty will discuss the work of MMoME, a fast-growing nonprofit organization dedicated to marine mammal and sea turtle response, rescue, care, research and education. Annually, the organization responds to nearly 300 situations involving both live and dead marine mammals and sea turtles across roughly 2,500 miles of coastline, covering the geographic area of Kittery to Rockland. She’ll talk about how the group does it and what it means for the health of the Maine coast.
Powers is vice president of mission and flight operations and training, vehicle maintenance, and launch complex infrastructure at Launch Site One. She flew on the second human flight of Blue Origin‘s New Shepherd program, NS-18. Previously, she was vice president of legal and compliance for Blue Origin, overseeing a variety of legal matters including regulatory affairs, legislative and policy matters, supplier and customer negotiations and management, maritime law, crisis response, and legal operations.
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 was also 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 via Zoom, email laseniorcollege@gmail.com – for Doughty’s presentation by noon on March 29 and for Powers by noon Sunday, June 5. Be sure to include your name and what program you are attending. You will receive an email link the morning of the event.
