Dr. Lewis M. Duncan Named Interim Chairperson of CASIS Board of Directors

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (March 31, 2014) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) announced that France Cordova, Ph.D., has resigned from its board of directors as she will become the new director for the National Science Foundation. Previously, Dr. Cordova served as the chairperson for the CASIS board of directors. With her departure, Lewis M. Duncan, Ph.D., has been named interim chairperson.

Since December 2012, Dr. Cordova has honorably served as the chairperson for CASIS, where she was the official spokesperson for all board-related matters and presided over all board meetings. Dr. Duncan will now assume such responsibilities. Over her tenure, Dr. Cordova was instrumental in the continued growth of CASIS as the manager of the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, including presiding over the first CASIS-sponsored research payloads sent to the station.

Dr. Cordova resigned in order to accept an appointment by President Barack Obama to serve as director of the National Science Foundation. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and officially sworn in on March 31, 2014.

“The CASIS board of directors and staff sincerely thank Dr. Cordova for her dedication to the advancement of the ISS National Laboratory,” said CASIS interim board of directors chairperson Dr. Lewis M. Duncan. “Her leadership was critical in seeing CASIS move from startup phase to a fully operational organization that has brokered well over 40 flight projects destined for the ISS National Laboratory capable of benefitting life on Earth. I look forward to continuing her legacy and working with CASIS staff to fully utilize this incredible research laboratory.”

Dr. Duncan currently serves as the president of Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of space plasma physics, highpower radio wave propagation, and radar studies of the upper atmosphere. Duncan received his B.A. in physics and mathematics and his M.S. and Ph.D. in space physics from Rice University.

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