Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman is a professor in MIT’s Aeronautics and Astronautics Department. He
received a BA in Astronomy (summa cum laude) from Amherst College (1966); a PhD in
Astrophysics from Harvard University (1971); and an MSc in Materials Science from Rice
University (1988). As a NASA astronaut (1978-1997) he made five space flights, becoming
the first astronaut to log 1000 hours of flight time aboard the Space Shuttle. Dr. Hoffman
was Payload Commander of STS-46, the first flight of the US-Italian Tethered Satellite
System. He has performed four spacewalks, including the first unplanned, contingency
spacewalk in NASA’s history (STS 51D; April, 1985) and the initial repair/rescue mission
for the Hubble Space Telescope (STS 61; December, 1993). As the Astronaut Office
representative for EVA, he helped develop and carry out tests of advanced high-pressure
space suit designs and of new tools and procedures needed for the assembly of the
International Space Station. Following his astronaut career, Dr. Hoffman spent four years as
NASA’s European Representative, working at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. In August 2001, Dr.
Hoffman joined the MIT faculty, where he teaches courses on space operations and space
systems design. His primary research interests are in improving the technology of space
suits and designing innovative space systems for human and robotic space exploration. Dr.
Hoffman is director of the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, responsible for space-
related educational activities. He is Deputy Principal Investigator of the MOXIE experiment
on NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission, which for the first time has produced oxygen
from extraterrestrial material, a critical step in the future of human space exploration. In
2007, Dr. Hoffman was elected to the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.
To read a more detailed biography of Dr. Hoffman, click
here.
