IEST's Monthly Meet-up Program  

Many of us are “on” all day and don't have the opportunity to meet up like we used to.  IEST is here to help!  Grab a snack and your beverage of choice and join your fellow members and colleagues for our Monthly Meet-Ups, informal one-hour conversations about hot topics or current issues, with some months dedicated to open networking.  The IEST Monthly Meet-up dates and topics will be posted online as they are scheduled. You'll get to connect with peers to learn, ask questions, network, and provide feedback on hot topics and current issues. Recommend a Topic! What's on your mind? We're collecting topics of interest to use as conversation starters.  Fill out this one-question form (below) to recommend a topic you'd like to discuss with IEST and your colleagues. 

Scientific Findings from NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission 
March 21, 2023
12 - 12:45 p.m. Central Time
Register here

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). Receive a brief overview of the mission from DART Project Manager, Caitlin Shearer, including current scientific findings.

Caitlin Shearer is the project manager for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL leads the mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.  Caitlin previously served as the deputy project manager on DART during Mission Operations, working under former DART project manager Ed Reynolds. She is also the assistant project manager on the Europa Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) and is the project manager for a CubeSat instrument, the Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss (REAL) instrument. In addition to project management, she is a materials and planetary protection engineer, working on multiple projects including NASA’s Europa Clipper and Dragonfly missions. Caitlin holds a Master of Science in Materials Engineering from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.