Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman is a former NASA astronaut who made five space flights to become the first astronaut to log 1000 hours of flight time aboard the Space Shuttle. Dr. Hoffman was Payload Commander on the first flight of the US-Italian Tethered Satellite System. He played a key role in coordinating the scientific and operational teams working on this project. Dr. Hoffman has performed four spacewalks, including the first unplanned, contingency spacewalk in NASA’s history in April, 1985 and was on the initial repair/rescue mission for the Hubble Space Telescope in December, 1993. He also worked for several years as the Astronaut Office representative for EVA and 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. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2007.
Following his career as an astronaut, Dr. Hoffman spent four years as NASA’s European Representative, where his principal duties were to keep NASA and NASA’s European partners informed about each other’s activities, try to resolve problems in US-European space projects, search for new areas of space cooperation, and represent NASA in European media. In August 2001, he joined the MIT faculty where he teaches courses on space operations, space systems design, and space policy. Dr. Hoffman is also the director of the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, responsible for statewide space-related educational activities designed to increase public understanding of space and to attract students into aerospace careers.
Dr. Hoffman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Astronomy (summa cum laude) from Amherst College (1966); a Doctor of Philosophy in Astrophysics from Harvard University (1971); and a Master of Science degree in Materials Science from Rice University (1988).
