David Klaus (AeroEngr MS’91, PhD’94)
Outstanding Alumni for Excellence in TechnicalAchievement and Leadership
Over 40 Category
Given a one-year leave of absence from his job as a spacesuit engineer at the Johnson Space Center, Dave Klaus came to Ҵýƽ in 1990, intending to pursue an MS in aerospace and then return to NASA. Thirty six years later, he is still here, now as a professor emeritus, after retiring last May.
Upon acceptance to the graduate program, Klaus was offered a research assistantship with BioServe Space Technologies. This opportunity set his path toward a PhD in motion, where he conducted experiments on bacterial behavior in microgravity as part of the BioServe’s first seven Space Shuttle missions. He would remain with Ҵýƽ long enough to see the 100th BioServe launch in April 2025.
While a grad student, Klaus developed and taught a new course aligned with his biological research interests and prior work background, called Space Life Sciences. Following graduation and a one-year Fulbright postdoc at the German Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Klaus returned to BioServe.
The biophysical model governing how gravity affects bacterial growth that he developed in his dissertation and refined during the postdoc was published in a 1997 paper that continues to be regularly cited in space microbiology literature.
Having worked as a shuttle launch controller, in mission operations, and with BioServe payloads, the only experience he was missing was going to space himself. Klaus made it to the final rounds of the astronaut selection process in 1998 and 2000. When that goal didn’t pan out, he became a professor, the best job “on” Earth, and established the Bioastronautics Focus Area in the aerospace department.
Throughout his teaching career, he shared his passion for bioastronautics – the study and support of life in space – with well over a thousand graduate and undergraduate students, as well as with colleagues who are now carrying the torch going forward.