Emil Schiesser, a Sycamore native and graduate of NIU’s physics department, will give a presentation titled “From DeKalb to the Moon and Beyond,” at 7:30 p.m. today at the Engineering Building’s Auditorium, Room 101.

Schiesser received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NIU and went to work for NASA in 1961.

In the presentation he will discuss his 35 years working for NASA, where he wrote and directed control programs for the Mercury, Apollo and Shuttle space flights. He also will discuss his experiences at NIU.

Schiesser is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for Shuttle Navigation, an NIU Alumni Award, the Thomas L. Thurlow Awards for the Institute of Navigation and the Presidential Letter of Commendation for the Apollo navigation.

He began his career at NASA as an aerospace engineer where he performed navigation performance assessment and requirement analysis. He moved up to become an orbit determination section head in the mathematical physics branch, where he managed the definition, development and use of Apollo lunar mission ground navigation capability. Later he became assistant chief and chief of orbital navigation operations.

From 1990 to 2001, Schiesser worked as an engineering specialist at McDonnell Douglas/Boeing.

“His coming reflects NIU very well,” said Cindy Ditzler, Friends of the NIU Libraries publicity chair. “It shows the potential that students at NIU have.”

Schiesser’s presentation is free and open to all.