William J. Quirk is an American politician who served in the California State Assembly from 2012 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Quirk represented the 20th Assembly district, which encompasses the southern East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute. The institute is located at Columbia University in New York City. It was named after Robert H. Goddard, American engineer, professor, physicist and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.