Colleen Fava Honored with Outstanding Service Award

Colleen Fava, program manager of the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium (LaSPACE) / NASA EPSCoR, has been announced as one of the recipients of the 2017 LSU Foundation Staff Outstanding Service Awards. This annual award was established to recognize the superior work performance and outstanding contributions of full-time, non-academic staff employees of the LSU A&M campus and the LSU AgCenter.

Program manager since 2012, Fava has consistently provided outstanding service to LSU, the state of Louisiana, and the National Space Grant College and Fellowship program.

Fava organizes state-wide LaSPACE meetings, participates in state level EPSCoR committees as well as national Space Grant meetings, assists in the planning and organization of Space Grant/EPSCoR related national conferences, providing the highest quality reporting to state and federal program managers.

“Colleen’s outstanding service to LaSPACE significantly contributes to the state and nation wide perception of LSU as a high quality academic leader,” said T. Gregory Guzik, professor, LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, and director, LaSPACE/NASA EPSCoR.

“On August 21, 2017 the nation experienced a remarkable total solar eclipse across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina. LSU was one of the leadership teams for a nationwide Space Grant project to view the shadow of the moon from the very edge of space using balloon payloads developed by students. Colleen helped to organize a LaSPACE group, consisting of faculty and students from LSU, McNeese State University, Louisiana Tech University, and Delgado Community College that assisted with and participated in multiple outreach, workshop, and scientific activities at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Illinois during the eclipse. She also took the public relations lead for this event including helping plan solar eclipse activities at LSU plus providing background materials, arranging media interviews with LaSPACE personnel, and providing live commentary during our balloon launches at SIU. Colleen’s outstanding effort on this project provided LSU with a public relations event that will be difficult to reproduce in the near future,” said Guzik.

The Louisiana Space Consortium (LaSPACE) is a member of a nationwide organization that partners NASA with colleges / universities and other space related institutions to promote scientific research, workforce development, and public outreach to develop and strengthen long-term research capabilities that will make significant contributions to the research and technology Mission Directorates of NASA. In turn, this contributes to the overall research infrastructure, science and technology capabilities, graduate and undergraduate education and economic development of the state. This program is funded by NASA and the Louisiana Board of Regents.