ICRS 14/RPSD 2022 speaker

Lawrence W. Townsend, PhD

Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus

The University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Professor Townsend has over four decades of experience researching nuclear interactions of cosmic rays and their implications for space radiation shielding and crew protection and is among the top 1% of cited researchers in the world-wide aerospace science community. He has a BS in Physics from the U.S. Naval Academy, an MS in Physics from the Naval Postgraduate School, and PhD in Physics from the University of Idaho. He served as a nuclear submarine engineer officer (1970-1977). From 1981 - 1995, he was a NASA Research Scientist/Senior Research Scientist. In 1993, he received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. In 1995, he retired from NASA and joined the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, retiring in 2017. He is an ANS Fellow, an HPS Fellow, and Associate Fellow of the AIAAA. In 2020 he was elected to membership in the International Academy of Astronautics.