Basil Hassan AIAA Immediate Past President; Director and Deputy Chief Research Officer, Sandia National Laboratories

Dr. Basil Hassan is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and serves as the Institute President (2020–2022). Previously, he served on AIAA’s Board as Director and Vice President from 2008 to2017, and President-Elect from 2019 to2020. He has also served on several national review boards for the National Academies, NASA, DARPA, and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Since 2004, he has participated as an external member of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center. Basil currently serves on the North Carolina State University’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Educational Advisory Board and has served on similar boards for New Mexico State University, Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of New Mexico, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was the 2008 recipient of the AIAA Sustained Service Award and a 2017 recipient of North Carolina State University’s Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award.

Basil has served in a variety of positions in research and development (R&D) in the areas of aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics of high-speed flight vehicles, drag reduction for low-speed ground transportation vehicles, and high-velocity oxygen fuel thermal sprays. He has overseen all aspects of engineering sciences R&D and applications work at Sandia. Most notably, he helped support NASA in determining the cause of the Space Shuttle Columbiaaccident in 2003 and was part of the team that shut down the Deepwater Horizon oil well after the explosion and spill in 2010.