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.