The Maria Mitchell Association welcomes George Donnelly as the new Director of Development and Communications.  Before joining the MMA this past July, he served as a fundraising, marketing, and design consultant to a variety of New England clients for more than seven years.  He also served as the Vice President of Marketing for the Providence Convention and Visitors Bureau (RI) and as Executive Director of the Providence Tourism Council.  He served for more than a decade as the Director of Advertising and Public Relations for Mystic Aquarium (CT).

While at the Maria Mitchell Association, he will work to support and enhance fundraising efforts and work to better communicate all that MMA has to offer, including programs, MMA research, and activities.  He can be reached by email or by calling MMA at 508.228.9198.

Launching rockets at our Blast Off! Program

MMA would like to extend a special thank you to the Cape Cod Five Foundation for supporting Reaching for the Stars, an astronomy pilot program for children and families.  This summer, with help from the Foundation, we began offering astronomy education activities for children and families.  These new programs include ARTstronomy, Blast Off!, Robot Explorers, AstroKids Nights, and the Stars and Senses Night Hike.  They have all proven to be a big success and we hope to use these as a platform to build a year round education program.  The overall goals of Reaching for the Stars are:

• To increase the understanding of astronomy and space exploration among Nantucket residents and visitors;
• Provide opportunities for STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in an informal setting;
• Develop a summer pilot series that can grow into year-round programming for Nantucket schools and residents;
• To hire an astronomy intern who will design and lead lessons, promote the activities, and conduct evaluations.

Thanks again to the Cape Cod Five Foundation  

for helping us Reach the Stars!

Student Presentation

Wednesday, August 27, 7-8 PM, 33 Washington Street

High School students have been working with Dr. Peter Boyce on several projects this summer and will be presenting their work at the end of August.  Along with assisting with ongoing spat bag surveys, the projects include studying how effective mud crabs are at eating young scallops, studying the phytoplankton in the harbor, and analyzing dissolved oxygen levels throughout the harbor.  All this work adds to our understanding of the harbor ecosystem and is the basis for future research projects.  Please consider coming to the presentations to support these local students!

Free Admission

Michael West, Director of Astronomy, spent last week in Baltimore serving on the grant selection committee for NASA's Astrophysics Data Analysis Program. ADAP provides financial support for investigations whose purpose is the analysis of NASA space astrophysics data.