LSU Science Café: LSU and NASA: 60 Years of Artful Collaboration

Two years ago, faculty and students in LSU’s Digital Media Arts & Engineering program started working with NASA to create a digital twin, or real-time virtual representation, of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where America’s rockets are put together using LSU equipment. This digital twin relies on cutting-edge technology that was developed for video games and film production, and directly supports the multi-mission Artemis program to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon. But LSU’s artful collaboration with NASA started 60 years earlier, during the Apollo program, which landed the first people on the Moon. LSU’s second-longest-serving faculty member, Professor of Landscape Architecture Max Conrad, drew the original master plan for the Michoud Assembly Facility, working with many of the German engineers who were brought over to the United States after World War II through Operation Paperclip. Join us to hear his story.

Max Conrad is a professor in the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, where he has taught landscape architecture for 58 years. Conrad’s major interests are in the areas of urban design and regional planning. He is responsible for studio field trips to the East and West Coast and eastern Canada, and leads extensive field trips to Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India and China. Conrad received his bachelor of science in landscape architecture from LSU and his Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard. He was awarded the Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship early in his career, enabling a round-the-world study tour. He was the recipient of the 2013 Jot D. Carpenter Teaching Medal awarded by the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the speaker.

LSU Science Café is presented in partnership with Campus Federal Credit Union and WRKF.

The event is open to the public and advance registration through Eventbrite is recommended.

Please print your registration ticket or have it available on your electronic device upon arrival. Doors open at 5:00 PM. Event begins at 6:00 PM.

The event broadcast will be closed captioned, and a recording of the event will be made available on the LSU Research YouTube channel shortly after the event.

Host or Publisher LSU Office of Research & Economic Development