HAMPTON, Va. – Dr. Joel Levine, senior research scientist at NASA Langley, spent about five years of his career studying the founding documents of our Nation. In 1998, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., asked Levine to use his scientific expertise to identify the cause of "micro-droplets" that had formed on the Charters of Freedom -- the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Levine will share this experience in a colloquium lecture called "The Search for the Cause of the Mysterious Tiny Crystals in the Charters of Freedom" on Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 2 p.m. in the H. J. E. Reid Conference Center at NASA Langley Research Center. That evening, Levine will speak on the subject again for the general public at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Air & Space Center on Settlers Landing Road in Hampton.

Media who wish to interview Levine at a news briefing at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday should contact Emily Sturgill at 864-7022 or at emily.r.sturgill@nasa.gov by noon for credentials and entry to NASA Langley.

In addition to completing scientific research on the nation's most important documents, Levine has also been the principal investigator of several projects including the U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater Coring Project and the Biomass Burning Program. He is currently the principal investigator of Langley's Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) Mars Airplane Mission. Levine has received a number of awards during his career including NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal, the New York Academy of Sciences' Halpern Award for Photochemistry and Virginia's Outstanding Scientist.

For more information on NASA Langley's Colloquium and Sigma Series lectures, visit:

http://shemesh.larc.nasa.gov/Lectures/colloq/colloqsigma.htm

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