Dr. W. David Cummings

USRA Executive Vice President (retired)

David Cummings received his Ph.D. in Space Science at Rice in 1966. His thesis adviser was Dr. Alexander Dessler, and the title of the theses was Partial Ring Currents and Some of their Geophysical Effects. In 1966, Dr. Cummings joined the Department of Planetary and Space Science at UCLA as an Assistant Professor, where, in addition to teaching, he was a Co-Investigator for the magnetometer experiments on the first Applications Technology Satellite (ATS-1). His research focus at Rice and UCLA was space plasma physics, and during those six years he authored or co-authored fifteen papers that were published in referred journals. In 1969, Dr. Cummings was appointed Head of the Physics Department at Grambling College in north Louisiana, where he spent seven years in undergraduate teaching, research, and administration.

In the spring of 1976, Dr. Cummings was appointed the Executive Director of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), which is a non-profit corporation with research universities as its members. While Dr. Cummings was Executive Director of USRA, its membership grew to 100 universities and its inflation-adjusted funding base increased ten fold. During his 31 years at USRA, Dr. Cummings helped create a number of new research institutes and centers, including the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, USRA’s Division of Space Life Sciences, the National Center for Microgravity Research on Fluids and Combustion (now the National Center for Space Exploration Research on Fluids and Combustion), the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, the development and science management of the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, and the Center for Space Nuclear Research.

Dr. Cummings retired from USRA in June 2007. He remains as a consultant to USRA with the title of Senior Advisor to the USRA President.