Hastings is the Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as MIT’s Dean for Undergraduate Education from 2006 to 2013. In January 2014, he was appointed to a five-year term as the director of SMART, the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. From 1997 to 1999, Hastings served as chief scientist of the Air Force. In this role, he was the chief scientific adviser to the chief of staff and the secretary, providing assessments on a wide range of scientific and technical issues affecting the Air Force mission.
Hastings’ research has spanned five areas: laser material interactions, fusion plasma physics, spacecraft plasma environment interactions, space plasma thrusters, and space systems analysis and design. He has published more than 120 papers, has written a book on spacecraft-environment interactions, and has chapters in several other books.
About The Aerospace Corporation
The Aerospace Corporation is a national nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center and has more than 4,600 employees. With major locations in Chantilly, Virginia; El Segundo, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Colorado Springs, Colorado, Aerospace addresses complex problems across the space enterprise and other areas of national and international significance through agility, innovation, and objective technical leadership. For more information, visit www.aerospace.org. Follow us on LinkedIn. Follow us on X: @AerospaceCorp.