Valerie Neal

Dr. Valerie Neal is a curator emerita in the Department of Space History at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, where she joined as a curator in 1989 and managed human spaceflight artifact collections from the Space Shuttle era and International Space Station, including the orbiter Discovery.[1][2][6] She served as Chair of the Space History Department until her retirement in 2019 and is the author of 'On a Mission: The History of US Women Astronauts,' drawing from interviews with female astronauts.[3][4][7] Neal holds a B.A. in English & History from Texas Christian University, an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.[1]