NASA Astronaut Speaks to Upper School Students


NASA Astronaut and Engineer Michael Massimino visited Greenhill on Wednesday, November 11 to speak with Upper Schoolers at a community-wide assembly.

Dr. Massimino spoke about his life experience, how he became interested in engineering and space travel, how he lived in space during mission travel, and how he persevered and overcame three rejections from NASA before finally being accepted on his fourth attempt. Before the assembly, he conducted a seminar lunch with selected juniors and seniors. Dr. Massimino answered such student questions as how he kept up muscle tone and fitness in space, how he became the first person to tweet from space, and how he feels about movies like Interstellar and Gravity.

Dr. Massimino is a Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University’s The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. He received his Bachelor of Science from Columbia Engineering and Masters of Science in both Mechanical Engineering and Technology and Policy, as well as his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After working as an engineer at IBM, NASA Headquarters and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, along with academic appointments at both Rice University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Massimino was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1996. A veteran of two space flights, the fourth and fifth Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions in 2002 and 2009, Dr. Massimino has many accomplishments including a team record for the number of hours spacewalking in a single space shuttle mission and the first person to tweet from Space. He has also received a number of awards including two NASA Space Flight Medals, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, American Astronautical Society’s 2009 Flight Achievement Award and the Star of the Italian Solidarity (Italian Knighthood). He is also the holder of two patents and author of several papers.

Back at his alma mater, Columbia, Dr. Massimino is teaching an undergraduate course, Introduction to Human Space Flight, which harnesses his years of academic and professional experience. He is also working with The Art of Engineering, a course in which all first-year engineers attend design lectures and work on engineering projects with socially responsible themes.

Thank you to Dr. Massimino and Columbia University’s The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science for making this visit possible!
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