Professor Susan McKenna-Lawlor of NUI Maynooth has been elected to membership of the International Academy of Astronautics. The Academy was founded in 1960 by Theodore Von Karman in Stockholm to foster the development of astronautics for peaceful purposes. Prof McKenna-Lawlor is a member of the Senate of the NUI and has received other international awards including the Tsiokovsky gold medal of the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics. She will receive her diploma in Melbourne later this year.