Will Lead Prominent International Space Organization for Four Years
ANN ARBOR, MI, September 22, 2014 — Michigan Aerospace Corporation (MAC), an advanced engineering and products company, today announced that the Chairman of its Board of Directors and co-founder Prof. Lennard Fisk has been elected President of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the International Council of Science (ICSU). Dr. Fisk is the first American to hold that post in the fifty-six year history of COSPAR and will serve a four-year term. COSPAR is an international organization that promotes scientific research in space and provides a forum for discussion for space scientists around the world. During the Cold War, the President of COSPAR was a European, with the Soviet Union and the United States each taking a vice-presidential position. That system ended with the Cold War, but still Dr. Fisk is the first American to actually serve as President.
Dr. Fisk, along with fellow University of Michigan professor Dr. Paul Hays, founded Michigan Aerospace Corporation in 1996. Dr. Fisk is the Thomas M. Donahue Distinguished University Professor of Space Sciences in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences at Michigan, where he also served as Chair from 1993-2003. Prior to joining the University, Dr. Fisk was the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In this position he was responsible for the planning and direction of all NASA programs concerned with space science and applications and for the institutional management of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Dr. Fisk is the author of 225 publications on energetic particle and plasma phenomena in space. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA); he is a Foreign Member of Academia Europaea and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He served as Chair of the NAS Space Studies Board from 2003-2008 and is a Director of the Orbital Sciences Corporation. He is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1992, the AIAA Space Science Award in 1994, the IAA Basic Science Award in 1997 and 2007, the Carl Sagan Memorial Award of the American Astronautical Society, the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal in 2008; and from the University of Michigan, the Atwood Award in 2008 and the Henry Russel Lectureship in 2009.