Leroy Chiao Biography

Astronaut Leroy Chiao, Ph.D. is an entrepreneur, consultant and speaker. Chiao has extensive experience as a NASA Astronaut and prior to that, as a research engineer. He is involved in entrepreneurial business ventures and works in the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. He is an executive vice president and a director of Excalibur Almaz, a private manned spaceflight company. In addition, he is a director of InNexus, a biotechnology/pharmaceutical development company. Active as a consultant and public speaker, he also serves as the chairman of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute User Panel, which is attached to the Baylor College of Medicine. Chiao is a director of Challenger Center and of the Committee of 100. He is also an advisor and spokesman for the Heinlein Prize Trust.

Chiao left NASA in December, 2005 following a 15-year career with the agency. A veteran of four space missions, Chiao most recently served as commander and NASA science officer of Expedition 10 aboard the International Space Station. He has logged over 229 days in space—over 36 hours of which were spent in Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA, or spacewalks).

A native English speaker, Chiao also speaks Mandarin Chinese and Russian. He has flown space missions and worked closely with Russian, Japanese and European Astronauts and their affiliated space agencies. Chiao is uniquely qualified to speak about the U.S., Russian, Japanese, European and Chinese space programs. A space station commander and space shuttle mission specialist, Chiao was also a certified co-pilot of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He is an expert in all facets of U.S. and Russian EVA hardware and operations and is EVA certified in U.S. and Russian spacesuits, tools and training programs. In September 2006, Chiao became the first American to visit the Astronaut Research and Training Center of China. There, he met the first two national Chinese astronauts, Yang Liwei and Fei Junlong.

Chiao studied Chemical Engineering, earning a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. He continued his studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, earning his Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in 1985 and 1987. Prior to joining NASA in 1990, he worked as a research engineer at Hexcel Corp. and then at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

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