USRA's Board of Trustees appoints USRA officers and is responsible for setting corporate policy. One Board member-a faculty member or administrative officer at a member institution-is selected from each of USRA's nine geographic regions and serves a rotating three-year term. The Board also has four at-large members. The Chair of the Council of Institutions and USRA's president/chief executive officer serve as ex officio Board members. The Board holds four scheduled meetings per year.
All USRA member institutions have graduate programs in the space sciences or aerospace engineering. There are 95 member institutions in the United States, two in Canada, two in England, one in Germany, two in Israel, one in Australia, and one in China.
The member institutions are divided into nine regional groups, with the nine non-U.S. members forming their own region.
The current Board of Trustees Chair is Dr. Peter Banks. The Vice-Chair is M.K. Jeppesen.
USRA Trustees
- Peter Banks, Astrolabe Ventures
- Stefi Baum, Rochester Institute of Technology
- Michael Drake, University of Arizona
- Ivette Falto-Heck, Lockheed Martin Corporation
- John D. Fix, University of Alabama, Huntsville
- David Frost, Frost & Associates, Inc.
- Ed Groth, Chair, USRA Council of Institutions, Princeton University
- Wesley Harris, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- M.K. Jeppesen, Utah State University
- Steven Kahn, Stanford University
- Scott Pace, George Washington University
- Eric J. Sheppard, Hampton University
- Gary Swenson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- Alan Wells, University of Leicester Space Research Center
- Frederick Tarantino, USRA President and CEO
Dates and the agenda for the next Board of Trustees meeting can be found on our Intranet for Trustees (password required).
USRA's Director of University Relations serves as the corporate liaison to our member institutions.
Click here for a copy of USRA's Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws (.pdf).
USRA members enjoy a wide range of benefits, from strong collaboration among its member institutions and USRA research entities to access to funded research opportunities.
Find out how to become a USRA member here.