ATD Buffalo Niagara Celebrates Arab American Heritage Month

Christa McAuliffe was born in Boston Massachusetts, coming from Irish and Lebanese decent. She was the great niece of Lebanese American historian, Phillip Khuri Hitti.

McAuliffe is well known for being a teacher and astronaut, who tragically lost her life on the Space Shuttle Challenger mission, on January 28, 1986. After her death, several schools have been named in her honor and she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004.

In 1985, McAuliffe was selected for the NASA Teacher in Space Project, TISP was a NASA program announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and was designed to inspire students, honor teachers and spur interest in mathematics, science, and space exploration.

Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian American space scientist and geologist that worked with NASA in the scientific exploration of the Moon and the planning of the Apollo Program. El-Baz was born in Zagazig, in the Kingdom of Egypt.

Currently, El-Baz is a Research Professor and Director of the Center for Remote Sending at Boston University in Boston, MA. In addition, El-Baz is an Adjunct Professor of Geology at the Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

From 1967 – 1972, El-Baz was the Supervisor of Lunar Science Planning at Bellcomm Inc. for the NASA Apollo Program and had a key role in helping NASA determine the ideal Moon landing site for the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.