Biography

Dr. Alan Stern is a planetary scientist, commercial astronaut, space program executive, aerospace consultant, author, and public speaker. Since 2001 he has led NASA’s New Horizons mission that explored the Pluto system and is now exploring the Kuiper Belt—the farthest exploration in human history. Dr. Stern served as Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, leading all NASA Science.

From 2011-2013 Dr. Stern served as the Director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida. Stern’s first spaceflight, a research and training mission, occurred in 2023. NASA has appointed him to be the first researcher NASA will fly to space a second time as a crew member aboard an upcoming commercial suborbital space mission. In 2022, he took part in an expedition to explore the RMS Titanic on a submersible.