Mark Shelhamer, ScD

Advisor to the Board

Mark Shelhamer, Sc.D. is on the faculty of Johns Hopkins where he started as a postdoctoral fellow in 1990. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Drexel University, and a doctoral degree in Biomedical Engineering from MIT. At MIT he worked on sensorimotor physiology and modeling, including the study of astronaut adaptation to space flight. He then moved to Johns Hopkins where he continued the study of sensorimotor adaptation with an emphasis on the vestibular and oculomotor systems and nonlinear dynamics. From 2013 to 2016 he served as Chief Scientist for the NASA Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center. In that role, he oversaw NASA’s research portfolio for maintaining health and performance in long-duration spaceflight. This portfolio spans a range from physiology to psychology, including planning of medical systems and effects of radiation. Since returning to Johns Hopkins, his research has continued in the area of sensorimotor function, which includes experiments on ISS astronauts as well as crews of commercial orbital space flights. He also has a research program devoted to the multi-system and cross-disciplinary interactions that contribute to personal and mission resilience in spaceflight.