NASA veteran Herb Sims has been named adjunct assistant
professor to Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala. His
appointment continues a long-standing collaboration aimed at
strengthening the university’s engineering program.

Sims is an in-space propulsion engineer in the Propulsion
Research Center’s Energetics Research Group at NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, Ala.

Sims was named to the faculty position through the NASA
Administrator’s Fellowship Program. The program is designed
to enhance the professional development of NASA employees and
the science, technology, engineering and mathematics faculty
of minority institutions. It also seeks to increase response
by these participants to NASA’s overall research and
development mission.

The fellowship program has two components, a NASA employee
serving in a minority institution and a faculty member at a
minority institution serving at a NASA Center. The program is
managed by NASA Headquarters and implemented by the MSFC
Equal Opportunity Office.

“This program allows students to take what they learned in
class and apply it in a working environment, to actually get
in the lab and do the research,” Sims said. “As a result,
these students not only benefit from NASA technology, but
also get valuable, hands-on experience,” he added.

Sims is a 1991 graduate of the University of Iowa in Iowa
City, where he received a bachelor’s degree in electrical
engineering. He received his master’s degree and doctorate in
the same field from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
in 1996 and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 2000,
respectively.

After graduation, Sims joined the MSFC team as an engineer in
the Astrionics Laboratory of the Engineering Directorate.
From 1991 to 1999, his primary responsibilities included work
on electronic systems for NASA spacecrafts, including the
telemetry systems, which transmit and receive data, for the
Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Sims also worked on the support crew for the Hubble Space
Telescope service missions, from 1993 to 1997, helping train
astronauts to conduct maintenance on the telescope, which was
launched in 1990. Sims was named to his current MSFC position
in 2001.

“I was destined to be an engineer. I come from a long line of
engineers, my father, two brothers, three uncles, three
cousins, and I am sure I’m forgetting a few people. But,
being an engineer at NASA, well that’s just extraordinary,”
Sims said.

In the early 60s and 70s, Sims remembers his parents letting
him stay home from school to watch each Apollo launch. This
inspired him to dream about working for NASA and perhaps even
going into space.

Media organizations interested in interviewing Sims should
contact Betty Humphery, MSFC Office of Public Affairs, at:
256/544-0034.

For more information about the NASA Administrator’s
Fellowship Program and Marshall’s Equal Opportunity Office,
visit: http://eo.msfc.nasa.gov