Gregory Kovacs
Expertise: Astrobionics; Telemedicine
Affiliation: NASA Ames/Stanford University
Who I am and what I do
I am an enthusiastic generalist, with
training in electrical engineering, biomedical
engineering, and medicine. I am fascinated
by the overlaps and synergies between engineering
and life sciences, and this drove most
of my educational choices. I began studying
electrical engineering in Vancouver, Canada,
where I grew up. At the same time, I took
the "pre-med" courses in biology
offered at the University of British Columbia,
and greatly enjoyed them. During those
undergrad years, we started a few companies
and did a lot of consulting as a way of
paying for school, with the added bonus
of learning the art of building useful
electronic instruments. I then went to
Berkeley to study bioengineering, and obtained
an M.S. degree there. From there, the next
move was to medical school at Stanford,
which was a fantastic experience. To satisfy
my desire to delve deeper into the more
nerdy aspects of engineering, I simultaneously
began the PhD program in electrical engineering.
While initially intending to continue down
the medical career path, I was offered
a faculty position in electrical engineering
at Stanford and decided to try it for a
few years (while my recently completed
medical boards results were still valid).
The rest is history. I loved the teaching
and research, and still do. I have been
a professor at Stanford since 1991, and
am Director of Medical Device Technologies
for the Astrobionics Program and NASA Ames
Research Center.
Philosophically, I believe the good stuff
is at the intersection of traditional disciplines.
When enough is discovered in these "between
the cracks" areas, new disciplines
end up emerging. In this way, electrical
engineering emerged from physics, molecular
biology emerged from Darwinian biology
and chemistry, and so on. I absolutely
love the feeling of applying engineering
principles to biology and medicine, and
vice versa, all with the goal of doing
something that is meaningful and useful.
In my laboratory at Stanford we design
instruments for monitoring life processes
from molecules through humans. We strive
to address practical problems, and have
worked on projects to detect heavy metal
contamination in groundwater, to detect
environmental and deliberately released
toxins, to discover new pharmaceutical
agents, to monitor the vital signs of astronauts
and first responders, and to develop miniaturized
biological science payloads for spaceflight.
I am a private pilot, scuba diver, and
outdoors enthusiast. I have been active
in fieldwork, including participation in
an expedition to locate and document downed
WW II aircraft in the South Pacific, several
mountain climbs to test NASA wearable physiologic
monitors, and a desert field test of a
biological toxin detection system with
the United States Marine Corps.
I have also been active in the commercial
world, having co-founded several companies
including Cepheid in Sunnyvale, CA. This
latest venture has grown into a leading
provider of instrumentation for molecular
diagnosis of disease.
For more than four months following the
Columbia accident this year, I served as
Investigation Scientist for the debris
team of the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board. I worked at the Kennedy Space Center
in Florida, carrying out physical, x-ray,
chemical and other analyses on the nearly
90,000 pounds of recovered debris. This
sad but fascinating job had the goal of
trying to understand the nature of the
disaster and learn what we could about
the cause and how to prevent similar problems
in the future.
Expedition role
On the 2003 expedition, I will be testing
wearable medical monitoring systems, attempting
a direct satellite link to transmit live
vital signs from the Licancabur crater
site back to NASA Ames, monitoring that
status of the dive team, and generally
assisting Dr. Cabrol and the team with
a variety of technical and scientific matters
including underwater photography.
What made you study science?
When I was growing up, I was always curious
about everything. Everything I could open
and disassemble was opened and disassembled.
I had an insatiable desire to learn about
living things, mechanisms, chemistry, electronics,
computers (such as they were back then)
and so on. So, it was curiosity that drove
my study of science, engineering and medicine.
Combining this with a love of exploration
and the outdoors leads to wonderful opportunities
like the current expedition.
Family, hobbies, interests, etc.
I am married to Laurel Joyce, from the
Pittsburgh, PA area, and we have two sons,
Reid and Clark. We also have a black Labrador
retriever and numerous fish and invertebrates.
The boys have the curiosity too, and already
want to look in, under, and inside everything.
They also love wandering outdoors looking
for bugs, berries, rocks, and such.
In my spare time (not much, unfortunately),
I enjoy outdoor activities such as hiking,
climbing and flying, restoring old scientific
instruments, exercising to stay fit, and
tinkering with anything with an on/off
switch.
Parting words for students and teachers
Being a student is one of the very best
moments in life. It may not be apparent
at the time, but trust me, through your
actions in and away from the classroom,
you will shape your future. Most important,
I think, is not to shy away from math and
science. They are, most folks think, "harder," but
really it is just a matter of learning
some skills that take an initial investment
of concentration and time, but repay that
many fold over life. In other words, don't
cut yourself short by opting out of courses
like biology, chemistry, physics and math.
They are worth every bit of the head scratching
and study.
One more thought - stay fit. It would
be a real shame to be a smart dead person,
so try to work out a bit... Just a thought.
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