NASA engineer joins Texas A&M faculty
After helping develop the world’s most innovative projects at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Dr. Diane Davis will bring her expertise to the aerospace engineering department to educate future generations on space exploration.
DIane Davis
Texas A&M University’s aerospace engineering department announced the addition of faculty member Dr. Diane Davis, astrodynamicist and NASA engineer. She will join the faculty as a professor in the Fall 2026 semester.
Her experience includes virtually navigating spacecraft to Mars at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory prior to spending nearly 15 years with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She led the Gateway Mission Design team working on lunar trajectory design, propellant budgets, orbit maintenance and other long-term trajectory planning. She conducted trajectory research in multibody dynamical regimes and worked on the software that is used to fly the International Space Station.
Her areas of research focus include multibody dynamics, cislunar space traffic management, spacecraft orbit maintenance and trajectory design. She has dedicated most of her recent work to Gateway’s lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit.
“After 10 years of focusing on a handful of missions, I’m really excited to expand my research to other orbits in the lunar vicinity, as well as elsewhere in the solar system,” Davis said.
Returning to academia was always in her plans. Even while at NASA, she said her favorite part of the summers was the opportunity to work with student interns.
“Space flight is such an easy thing to get excited about,” Davis said. “I hope to share my enthusiasm so that students get just as excited to explore and discover new things.”
Davis started her academic career as a freshman in physics at Texas A&M, then went on to the University of Texas at Austin for her master’s degree and Purdue University for her Ph.D. She is also a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the International Astronautical Federation Astrodynamics Committee.
Davis hasn’t lived in College Station since graduating over 20 years ago and acknowledges the area’s drastic changes over the last two decades. However, she feels like the friendly Aggie Spirit has stayed the same.
“I love the department here and how welcoming it is,” Davis said. “It’s really exciting to see the space engineering program that’s being built.”
Davis was hired as a part of the newest space engineering degree that will kick off in the fall with a class of 40 students. She will be teaching a class on orbital mechanics that includes the moon, but expand to other planets as well.
Dr. Manoranjan Majji, associate department head for space engineering, is eager to have Davis join the new initiative as an instructor.
“We are excited to welcome Dr. Davis to our department. Her energy, commitment and drive for excellence are infectious,” Majji said. “We cannot wait for her to inspire our students to be visionary innovators for the betterment of humankind.”
