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Release: 01-325

NASA Marshall scientist James Spann completes future leaders program

Dr. James Spann, an astrophysicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., recently graduated from NASA’s 2000-2001 Professional Development Program for future leaders.

Participants in the yearlong program engage in an intensive development process that combines work assignments, leadership workshops, briefings by NASA’s leadership, training opportunities and individual coaching. The goal is to provide future leaders with a broader perspective of NASA and the impact of its programs.

Aside from his duties at Marshall as a research scientist, Spann is temporarily on assignment as a discipline scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In this position he oversees the development and planning of missions to study space phenomena such as how Earth’s magnetic field responds to solar wind and how the aurora (northern lights) are affected by the changing Sun. He also is involved in work on the Living With a Star program.

This program seeks to understand “space weather" in the same way that meteorologists study and predict the local and national weather.

“Working for NASA is exciting,” Spann says. “I get to play with the coolest ‘toys’ and help unlock the secrets of how nature works so that it might benefit humans in their quest to use and explore space.”

When he’s not working, Spann enjoys playing guitar, working with youth, soccer and photography.

Spann began his NASA career in 1986 after serving for two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Energy’s Morgantown Energy Technology Center in Morgantown, W. Va. He is the recipient of numerous NASA awards, including the Marshall Center Director’s Commendation Award. Spann has authored or co-authored more than 35 scientific papers and more than 60 presentations for national and international scientific meetings.

Spann is a 1979 cum laude graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in math and physics. He earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1984.

The son of Southern Baptist missionaries, Spann’s hometown is Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, where he attended Escola Americana do Recife (American School of Recife). His parents, Fred Spann of North Little Rock, Ark., and Bettye Brawner Spann of Wynne, Ark., have retired on a peach orchard outside of Colt, Ark.

Spann and his wife, Diane, have two children and currently reside in Fredericksburg, Va. They plan on returning to Huntsville in 2002.