Dr. Jan Davis began her NASA career in 1979 as an aerospace engineer. She supported major NASA programs and projects, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. After the Challenger accident, she became a team lead and lead engineer for the redesign of the Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster External Tank Attach ring. 

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In 1987, Dr. Davis was selected to join the Astronaut corps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. She has spent more than 670 hours in space as a mission specialist over the course of her three Space Shuttle flights. She orbited the Earth 445 times.  She retired from NASA in 2005.

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            Dr. Davis did her graduate research work in mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She also has degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Auburn University in biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering, respectively. 

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Among her many awards, in 2002, Dr. Davis was given the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive, and she has received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal, Space Medals, and Outstanding Leadership Medal.  In May 2013, she received the Christine Richard Girl Scouts Lifetime Achievement Award.

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She has served on many non-profit boards and has recently authored two books Air Born about her father, a WWII B-17 pilot and POW, and herself. For this, she was selected to participate in the 2024 Texas Book Festival. Her husband is retired Alabama 23rd Judicial Circuit District Judge Dick Richardson and they have two grown children and four grandchildren.