Jerome "Jay" Apt III, born April 28, 1949, in Springfield, Massachusetts, considers Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his hometown. A physicist and former NASA astronaut, he earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard College in 1971 and a doctorate in physics from MIT in 1976. Before joining NASA, he conducted planetary research and worked on the Pioneer Venus Mission. Selected as an astronaut in 1985, Apt flew four space shuttle missions, logging over 847 hours in space and completing two spacewalks. He contributed to missions deploying the Gamma Ray Observatory, conducting life science experiments, and docking with the Russian Mir space station. After leaving NASA in 1997, he became Director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Courtesy of NASA.