Dr. Neal R. Pellis is
Senior Scientist in the Space Life
Sciences Directorate at NASA
Johnson Space
Center, working with the
directorate chief on strategic planning, alliances, and partnerships necessary
to acquire basic and applied science and technology exploration missions and to
manage the risks to crew in space and on planetary missions.
Dr. Pellis
received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Miami
University, Oxford,
Ohio in 1972 and performed his postdoctoral
fellowship in Microbiology at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Pellis joined the NASA-Johnson Space
Center in October 1994, having previously been on the Faculty of Northwestern
University Medical School, the University of Texas Medical School, and
directing the Surgical Immunology Laboratory in the Department of Surgical
Oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
He retains adjunct appointments at the
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas
Health Science Center at Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and
the Mabee Laboratory of Biochemical and Genetic Engineering, Rice University,
Houston, TX, as
well as the University of Texas Medical Branch Graduate School of Biomedical
Sciences, Galveston, TX. He lead the biotechnology cell science
program at NASA ffom 1994 to 2003.
He
was assigned for 16 months to NASA Headquarters as International Space Station
(ISS) Program Scientist and Executive Secretary of the NASA Space Station
Utilization Advisory Subcommittee (SSUAS) from May 2002 through August
2003.Thereafter he was Associate Director of the Biological Sciences and Applications
Office working on exploration cell science until January 2005. In 2005 he was appointed Senior Scientist
which is his current position.