Curriculum Vitae for Bernie Luna

Dr. Luna has over 25 years experience at NASA, with roles in bioscience disciplines, management, and airborne science. She joined NASA Ames in 1985 to develop and test advanced space suits and portable life support systems. Her engineering work typically involves the interaction of humans with engineering systems. She has been responsible for thermal finite element analyses, biomedical (human) research on thermal regulation, space suit joint testing, underwater space suit testing and biomechanical analyses, catalyst and sorbent materials evaluations, and development and testing of systems for carbon dioxide removal. She served as the lead for Air Revitalization in the Bioengineering Branch, managing several projects concerned with the maintenance of breathable, safe, contaminant-free air in the space cabin. Focused study of a man-made atmosphere, like the space cabin atmosphere, entails some commonality with study of Earth’s atmosphere. So the transition from life support work to Earth Science work came naturally. Dr. Luna now coordinates the efforts of many to perform multi-aircraft missions to investigate the earth’s atmosphere.