The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) chief safety and mission assurance officer will give the keynote address Nov. 16 at the Software Engineering Research Center's (SERC) biannual showcase at Ball State.

Bryan O'Connor, a former member of NASA's astronaut program, will make a presentation "Safety and Mission Assurance in the New Vision for Space Exploration" at 8 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building, Recital Hall.  His biography may be found online at www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/oconner_bio.html.

The fall SERC events, scheduled for Nov. 16-17 at the Alumni Center, showcase new technologies and research projects being done by Ball State faculty and students. Events include presentations of current research projects, new software engineering research proposals, student presentations at poster displays, software demonstrations and technology-related games.

The showcase also includes a job fair where students will have the opportunity to talk to SERC affiliate members about prospective internship and full-time employment opportunities.

Researchers from Purdue University, West Virginia University, University of West Florida, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, University of Illinois at Chicago, Pennsylvania State University, Portland State University and Ball State will attend the two-day event.  Industrial affiliate members include Motorola, Northrop Grumman, Lilly, Ontario Systems, Baker Hill, Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane, Intelligent Information Technologies, Telcordia, National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, Raytheon and Arxan Technologies.

More information about SERC may be found online at www.serc.net.

(Note to Editors: For more information, contact Wayne Zage, computer science professor, at wmzage@bsu.edu or (765) 285-8664 or visit SERC's Web site at www.serc.net. More stories about Ball State may be found on the News Center at www.bsu.edu/news)