Robert Lindberg was named President and Executive Director of the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) in October 2003. He has been with NIA since its formation in 2002, and previously served as Vice President for Research and Program Development. He holds a simultaneous faculty appointment as Research Professor at the University of Virginia. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President for Defense Programs in the corporate offices of Orbital Sciences Corporation. He was with Orbital for sixteen years, and held a variety of other leadership positions including Vice President and Program Manager for NASA\’s X-34 experimental rocketplane. Prior to joining Orbital, he was a research scientist and branch head at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Lindberg received a B.S. in Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Virginia, and a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University. He is a Fellow and a past president of the American Astronautical Society, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a Member of Sigma Xi and Sigma Pi Sigma. He has received numerous honors including the 2003 Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement from Columbia University. He has published over 25 research papers in aerospace systems design, controls, and robotics and has edited two books. He has served committees and panels for the Naval Studies Board of the National Academies, the National Security Space Architect, and the Federal Aviation Administration, and on the Advisory Boards to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at WPI, the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, the Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Department at Virginia Tech, and the Center for Aerospace Systems Analysis at Georgia Tech.