Boston College sociologist Diane Vaughan, who has spent the past nine years investigating NASA and its organizational culture, will speak at Hamilton College on Monday, April 8, at 4:15 p.m, in the Chemistry Auditorium. The lecture, "Sensational Cases, Flawed Theories: The Challenger Launch Decision," is free and open to the general public.

Her new book, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA, sheds light on why NASA managers went ahead with the Challenger launch when, in retrospect, there was overwhelming evidence of the undue danger of doing so. Vaughan also states that the key to understanding how the disaster happened lays deep within the culture of NASA.

The lecture is sponsored by the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty and the departments of anthropology, chemistry, economics, physics, sociology and rhetoric and communication.