The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum has appointed former NASA astronaut Michael J. Massimino, Ph. D., as its Senior Advisor, Space Programs. In the role, Massimino will provide content advice on all space-related exhibitions, education programming and events at the museum. His first efforts with the Museum include co-curating the upcoming HUBBLE@25 exhibit, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, opening October 23, 2014. Massimino also has shaped the ancillary public events that will take place in the months following the opening of the exhibit.

Massimino was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in May 1996, and qualified for flight assignment as a mission specialist following two years of training. He is a veteran of two space flights, STS-109 in March 2002 and STS-125 in May 2009, both of which were Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. Massimino has logged a total of 571 hours and 47 minutes in space, and a cumulative total of 30 hours and 4 minutes of spacewalking in four spacewalks. He has served with NASA in the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch, the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Branch, as a CAPCOM spacecraft communicator in Mission Control and as the Astronaut Office Technical Liaison to the Johnson Space Center EVA Program Office. Massimino also served as Chief of the Astronaut Appearances Office.

Prior to his storied NASA career, Massimino worked as a research engineer at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace in Houston, Texas. He also served as an adjunct assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering & Material Sciences Department at Rice University, and as an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He also currently serves as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University.

Massimino, who was born in Oceanside, New York and raised in Franklin Square, Long Island, received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Degree of Mechanical Engineer, M.S. of Technology and Policy, and M.S. of Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University.

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