Vincent L. Pisacane is the former inaugural Robert A. Heinlein Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the United States Naval Academy. He served as head of the Space Department, Assistant Director for Research and Exploratory Development, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He holds a B.S. from Drexel University, and both an M.S. in Applied Mechanics and Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics and Physics from Michigan State University. He currently teaches space systems engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. He is a fellow of the AIAA.