POTSDAM -- A panel of guest speakers will discuss space exploration at the SUNY Potsdam Academic Festival.

Charles Hailey, Daniel Krysak, Ryan Zeigler, Steven Jones and Steven Blusk will discuss black holes, the Curiosity Rover and how the moon was formed. Learn about aerogels and how they can insulate equipment and space dust, as well as the story behind the Higgs Boson. Lunar samples will be available for viewing.

Hailey will speak about black holes Thursday, April 11 from 10 to 11 a.m. in Kellas Hall room 104. Krysak will speak about Curiosity Thursday, April 11, from 1 to 2 p.m. in Kellas 106.

Zeigler will speak about the moon Thursday, April 11, from 2 to 3 p.m., followed by a display of lunar rock samples on loan from NASA from 3 to 4 p.m., both in Kellas 106.

Jones will speak on aerogels Thursday, April 11, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Kellas 106. Blusk will speak about the Higgs Boson Saturday, April 13, from 10 to 11 a.m. in Kellas 104.

"There is always great interest on campus when the lunar samples are here, and very good turnouts by the general public when we offer planetary geology events open to all. With an entire afternoon session devoted to extraterrestrial places, along with a showing of the lunar samples on loan from NASA, we hope to have a large audience from both the campus and community," said Robert Badger chair of the college's Department of Geology.

The "Making the Future" campus celebration will include a variety of lectures, panel discussions, film screenings and keynote speeches. For the full schedule, visit www.potsdam.edu/academicfestival.

Charles Hailey is the Pupin Professor of Physics at Columbia University. His research focuses on experimental high-energy astrophysics and particle astrophysics.

Using a novel approach to fabricating X-ray optics, his group built and calibrated the hard X-ray telescopes for NASA's NuSTAR mission, which launched in June 2012. It will detect dark matter and hunt down black holes.

In addition, the gaseous antiparticle spectrometer that Hailey built is currently surveying the regions surrounding the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Hailey will present "New Eyes Probing the Universe: NuSTAR, 'The Black Hole Finder Mission,'" Thursday, April 11 from 10 to 11 a.m. in Kellas Hall room 104.

Daniel Krysak is the missions operations specialist for Malin Science Systems, NASA. After earning his bachelor's degree in archaeology and speech communications, with a minor in geology from SUNY Potsdam in 2008, Krysak went on to study planetary geoscience at the University at Buffalo.

He commands the four main science cameras on the Mars Rover Curiosity. Krysak will discuss "Journey to Mars: The Rover Curiosity," Thursday, April 11, from 1 to 2 p.m. in Kellas 106.

Ryan Zeigler is a planetary scientist and Apollo sample curator for NASA. After graduating with his bachelor's degree in geology and history from SUNY Potsdam in 1998, he went on to graduate work at Washington University, where he earned his master's and Ph.D.

He studies the geochemistry and petrography of lunar samples to better understand how the Moon formed, and how impacts have altered its surface. Zeigler will speak about "Earth's Moon: What we have Learned since the Apollo Missions," Thursday, April 11, from 2 to 3 p.m., followed by a display of lunar rock samples on loan from NASA from 3 to 4 p.m., both in Kellas 106.

Steven Jones is a staff scientist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from SUNY Potsdam, and went on to Clarkson University, where he completed a B.S. in physics, as well as a master's degree and Ph.D. in chemistry.

He went on to develop the aerogels for the Stardust and Mars Rover missions, and is now working on the Project Prometheus Program, part of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter project. Jones will speak about "Space Exploration Applications of Aerogels" Thursday, April 11, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Kellas 106.

Steven Blusk is a professor of physics at Syracuse University, where he researches experimental particle physics. A double major in mathematics and physics at SUNY Potsdam, Blusk went on to earn his master's and Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to SU, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rochester.

He is a member of the Experimental Particle Physics Group, supported by the National Science Foundation. He is particularly interested in one of the largest scientific discoveries in the last 100 years -- the Higgs Boson, sometimes called "the God particle," which was identified at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland last year. Blusk will present "God Particle: The Higgs Boson," Saturday, April 13, from 10 to 11 a.m. in Kellas 104.