Robert "Bobby" Lee Satcher, Jr. ’86, PhD ’93 has lived a life of learning, discovery and helping others. He is a physician, chemical engineer, and NASA astronaut who became the first orthopedic surgeon to travel into space.

Satcher is the nephew of Admiral David Satcher, 10th U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health and 16th U.S. Surgeon General. Another inspiration was fellow MIT alum Ronald E. McNair PhD '76, who lost his life in the 1986 Challenger accident.

I came up pretty much in African-American communities...so going off to college and arriving at MIT was almost like arriving on another planet. It was the first time I was in a predominately non-black situation.

Bobby Satcher in Technology and the Dream, 1997