Bonnie J. Dunbar | |
|---|---|
 Dunbar in 1997 | |
| Born | Bonnie Jeanne Dunbar March 3, 1949 Sunnyside, Washington, U.S. |
| Education | University of Washington (BS, MS) University of Houston (PhD) |
| Spouse | |
| Space career | |
| NASA astronaut | |
Time in space | 50d 8h 24m |
| Selection | NASA Group 9 (1980) |
| Missions | STS-61-A STS-32 STS-50 STS-71 STS-89 |
Mission insignia |      |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Aerospace engineering |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Effects of Antiorthostatic Kinesia on Sprague Dawley Rat Femur Fracture Toughness and Concomitant Alterations in Metabolic Activity ProQuest 303164294 (1983) |
Bonnie Jeanne Dunbar (born March 3, 1949) is an American engineer and retired NASA astronaut. She flew on five Space Shuttle missions between 1985 and 1998, including two dockings with the Mir space station.
A graduate of the University of Washington, where she earned a Master of Science degree in ceramics engineering, Dunbar became a senior research engineer in Rockwell International's Space Division, where she designed the equipment and manufacturing processes used to fabricate the ceramic tiles used in the Space Shuttle thermal protection system. In 1978, she joined NASA as a flight controller / payload officer, and was a guidance and navigation controller for Skylab during its de-orbiting and re-entry in July 1979. She was selected as one of the nineteen astronaut candidates in NASA Astronaut Group 9 in 1980. She flew in space five times, on the STS-61-A, STS-32, STS-50, STS-71 and STS-89, and trained in Russia as a cosmonaut.
Dunbar left NASA to become the president and chief executive officer of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where she was involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for high school students. From 2013 to 2015, she led the University of Houston's STEM Center and was a faculty member in the Cullen College of Engineering. She became the John and Bea Slattery professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University in 2016, and was the Director of the Institute for Engineering Education and Innovation (IEEI) there from 2016 to 2020.