Leland D. Melvin

Leland Melvin played wide receiver at the University of Richmond from 1982 to 1985 and is the Spider’s all-time leading receiver with 198 receptions and 2,669 yards. He also ranks fourth in career touchdowns with 16. After earning Associated Press All-American honors in 1984 and 1985 he was selected by the Detroit Lions in the NFL Draft. He joined the Lions as an 11th round pick in 1986, but eventually left the game due to injuries. In 1989 he was hired on at NASA and began working in the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch. Five years later he was selected to lead the Vehicle Health Monitoring team for the cooperative NASA and Lockheed martin X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program. The following year he designed and monitored the construction of an optical nondestructive facility capable of producing in-line fiber optic sensors. In 1998 he was selected to begin training as a NASA astronaut and went on to fly two missions on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, serving as a mission specialist on STS 122 in 2008 and as mission specialist 1 on STS 129 in 2009. He has since been assigned to the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch, the Education Department at NASA Headquarters, and the Robotics Branch of the Astronaut Office. He has also served as the co-manager of NASA’s Educator Astronaut Program, where he traveled across the country to discuss space exploration with teachers and students with the goal of promoting science, technology, engineering and technology.