Kenneth Souza

Mr. Souza spent 35 years with NASA pioneering the field of space biology and biomedicine. Under his leadership over 400 biological experiments were flown on a variety of spacecraft including US and Russian biosatellites, the Space Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station. Those experiments greatly expanded our understanding of the role and influence of gravity on living systems and also contributed to the identification and mitigation of some of the risks associated with human spaceflight. He was instrumental in the negotiation and development of several international spaceflight projects and experiments with the Russian, i.e., Bion Biosatellites and Mir; with the Japanese, i.e. , Spacelab-J, Space Station Biological Research Project, and the European Space Agency, ie, Neurolab. As a research scientist he conducted research in exobiology and developmental space biology. His flight experiment aboard the Space Shuttle in 1992 demonstrated, for the first time, that a vertebrate species, an amphibian, could complete ovulation, fertilization, and early development in the absence of gravity. He has published over 40 scientific articles in fields of exobiology, space and gravitational biology, and received both national and international awards for his management and scientific achievements.

Mr. Souza is currently on assignment from the SETI Institute to NASA’s Ames Research Center where he is serving as Senior Staff Scientist to the Program Integration Office in support of NASA’s Human Systems & Research Technology Program.