January 15, 2010

Contact:   Stacey Schmeidel, 704/894-2798

Thomas Marshburn

Davidson, NC -- Thomas Marshburn, a Davidson College graduate who spent more than two weeks on the International Space Station this past summer as a crewmember for the Space Shuttle Endeavour, will talk about his experience in a public lecture to be held Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the Duke Family Performance Hall at Davidson College.

The event is open to the public at no charge, though tickets are required. Tickets are available now to Davidson College faculty, students and staff, and will be available to the general public beginning Monday, Jan. 18. Tickets must be picked up in person (they are not available online or by phone), and there is a two-ticket limit per person.

Tickets may be picked up at the College Union Ticket Office during regular business hours, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition, the Ticket Office will be open until 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 18 and 19. The Ticket Office will also give out 100 tickets beginning at 6:30 p.m. on the night of the lecture.

Marshburn went into space on Space Shuttle Endeavour in July 2009 as a member of the crew of STS-127, ISS Assembly Mission 2J/A, which delivered the Japanese-built Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) and the Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section (ELM-ES) to the International Space Station. The mission launched on July 15, 2009, after five failed launch attempts, and returned on July 31, after a 16-day mission. This was the 23rd flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. When Endeavour docked with the ISS, it set a record for the most humans (13) in space in the same vehicle at the same time. It also tied the record of 13 people in space at any one time.

A native of Statesville, Marshburn graduated from Henderson High School in Atlanta, then received a bachelor of science degree in physics from Davidson College in 1982. He holds a masters in engineering physics from the University of Virginia, an M.D. degree from Wake Forest University, and a masters in medical science from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).

After completing medical school, Marshburn trained in emergency medicine and worked as an emergency physician before being accepted into the first class of the NASA/UTMB Space Medicine Fellowship in Galveston, Texas. After completing the fellowship in 1995, he worked as an emergency physician in area hospitals in Houston and Boston, and served as an attending for the emergency medicine residency for the University of Texas-Houston.

Marshburn joined NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1994 as a flight surgeon, and over the next 10 years supported various NASA programs in the U.S., Russia and Kazakhstan. He was selected for NASA's Astronaut Candidate Training program in 2004 and completed the program in 2006.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,800 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.

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