Academic Experience
Hoffman's original research interests were in high-energy astrophysics, specifically cosmic gamma ray and x-ray astronomy. His doctoral work at Harvard was the design, construction, testing, and flight of a balloon-borne, low-energy, gamma ray telescope.
From 1972 to 1975, during post-doctoral work at the University of Leicester in the UK, he worked on several x-ray astronomy rocket payloads. He also designed and supervised the construction and testing of the test equipment for use in an x-ray beam facility which he used to measure the scattering and reflectivity properties of x-ray concentrating mirrors. During his last year at Leicester, he was project scientist for the medium-energy x-ray experiment on the European Space Agency's EXOSAT satellite and played a leading role in the proposal and design studies for this project.
He worked in the Center for Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1975 to 1978 as project scientist in charge of the orbiting HEAO-1 A4 hard x-ray and gamma ray experiment, launched in August 1977. His involvement included pre-launch design of the data analysis system, supervising its operation post-launch, and directing the MIT team undertaking the scientific analysis of flight data being returned. He was also involved extensively in analysis of x-ray data from the SAS-3 satellite being operated by MIT. His principal research was the study of x-ray bursts, about which he authored or co-authored more than 20 papers.
He joined the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics faculty in 2001 as a senior lecturer, and since 2002 has been a Professor of the Practice in that department. His research specialties include human space flight operations, space flight technology, human-machine interactions, extravehicular activity, and conducting laboratory research in space. His teaching interests include space systems design and space policy. Dr. Hoffman instructed a course in systems engineering on the space shuttle that is available for free in video format from academic earth.
Read more about this topic: Jeffrey A. Hoffman
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