Biographical Sketch - John M. Logsdon
Biographical Sketch - John M. Logsdon
John M. Logsdon is Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he is also Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. From 1983-2001, he was also Director of the School’s Center for International Science and Technology Policy. He has been a faculty member at GW since 1970; from 1966-1970 he taught at the Catholic University of America. He holds a B.S. in Physics from Xavier University (1960) and a Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University (1970). Dr. Logsdon’s research interests focus on the policy and historical aspects of U.S. and international space activities.
Dr. Logsdon is the author of The
Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest and
is general editor of the eight-volume series Exploring the Unknown: Selected
Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. He has written
numerous articles and reports on space policy and history, and has recently
completed the basic article on “space exploration” for the new edition
of Encyclopedia Britannica. Dr. Logsdon has lectured and spoken to a wide
variety of audiences at professional meetings, colleges and universities,
international conferences, and other settings, and has testified before
Congress on several occasions. He has served as a consultant to many public
and private organizations. He is frequently consulted by the electronic
and print media for his views on space issues.
Dr. Logsdon recently served as a member
of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He is a former member of
the NASA Advisory Council and a current member of the Commercial Space
Transportation Advisory Committee of the Department of Transportation.
He is a recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Medal from NASA.
He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member
of the International Academy of Astronautics and Chair of its Commission
on Space Policy, Law, and Economics. He is member of the Board of Directors
of the Planetary Society and former chair of the Society’s Advisory Council.
He is faculty member of the International Space University and former member
of its Board of Trustees. He is on the editorial board of the international
journal Space Policy and was its North American editor from 1985-2000.
He is also on the editorial board of the journal Astrpolitics.
Dr. Logsdon has served as a member of
a blue-ribbon international committee evaluating Japan’s National Space
Development Agency and of the Committee on Human Space Exploration of the
Space Studies Board, National Research Council. He has also served on the
Vice President’s Space Policy Advisory Board, the Aeronautics and Space
Engineering Board of the National Research Council, NASA’s Space and Earth
Sciences Advisory Committee, and the Research Advisory Committee of the
National Air and Space Museum. He is former Chairman of the Committee on
Science and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science and of the Education Committee of the International Astronautical
Federation. He has twice been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars and was the first holder of the Chair in Space History
of the National Air and Space Museum.