Nick Kanas
Dr. Kanas is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He trained at Stanford University (B.A. Psychology), UCLA Medical School (M.D. 1971), University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (Internship), and UCSF (Psychiatry Residency 1975). After serving in the USAF as a psychiatrist from 1975-1977, he joined the faculty at UCSF and the affiliated San Francisco VA Medical Center, where he conducted clinical and research work on people suffering from stressful conditions. He has over 220 professional publications and is the recipient of the Dr. J. Elliott Royer Award for academic psychiatry.
Dr. Kanas has studied and written about psychological and interpersonal issues affecting people working in space for over 50 years. As a medical student, he was a teaching assistant for the Space Biology Institute in 1969 and participated in NASA-funded sleep research. Following a fellowship at NASA/Johnson Space Center in 1970, he was the senior author of the 1971 monograph Behavioral, Psychiatric, and Sociological Problems of Long-Duration Space Missions (NASA TM X-58067). He has done space-related research since the late 1980s, including a study of people working in the European Space Agency HUBES space simulator. For over 15 years thereafter he was an NSBRI and NASA-funded principal investigator, doing psychological research with astronauts and cosmonauts on the Mir and International Space Stations. He is a member and former trustee of the International Academy of Astronautics, and he has been a consultant for movies and private space firms. In 1999, Dr. Kanas received the Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Psychological and Psychiatric Aspects of Aerospace Medicine. In 2008, he received the International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Award.
Together with Dr. Dietrich Manzey, he is the co-author of the textbook Space Psychology and Psychiatry (now in its 2nd edition), which was given the 2004 International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award. His latest book on space psychology, entitled Humans in Space: The Psychological Hurdles, was given the 2016 International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award. He also has published three science fiction novels that include scientific appendices: The New Martians, The Protos Mandate, and The Caloris Network. He continues to write and consult on the psychosocial aspects of human space travel. Website: nickkanas.com