Astronaut joins CU-Boulder faculty

Voss (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Former astronaut and University of Colorado at Boulder alumnus Jim Voss has joined the campus's aerospace engineering sciences department. Voss holds a master's degree in aerospace engineering from CU-Boulder as well as an honorary doctorate from the university. Voss, who holds the Roubos Endowed Chair in Engineering, also will serve as an ambassador for the college and campus.

Voss, hired as a full-time scholar in residence, is one of three astronauts affiliated as faculty at CU-Boulder. He joins former astronaut Joe Tanner in the aerospace engineering sciences department; NASA's John Grunsfeld has a future appointment as adjoint professor in the astrophysical and planetary sciences department.

Voss said his assignment includes teaching classes and mentoring graduate student projects in the area of human space flight and helping to develop the department's graduate program in bioastronautics, along with Tanner, associate professor David Klaus and research professor Louis Stodieck. Voss will develop and teach an undergraduate course, "Introduction to Human Space Flight," which will be open to engineers and nonengineers.

During his NASA career, Voss spent 202 days in space, participating in five spaceflights and four spacewalks. A U. S. Army flight test engineer, he retired a colonel in 2003. He also served as a professor and associate dean of engineering at Auburn University.