Luke Roberson

Luke B. Roberson, Ph.D. is a NASA senior research scientist and payload systems engineer at the Kennedy Space Center. Dr. Roberson’s current research focuses on water and wastewater processing for planetary habitats, interplanetary space, and terrestrial launch systems. Dr. Roberson employs bioreactors and physical-chemical systems to treat wastewater and provide unique water systems for potable, thermal, hydroponic, and aquaculture systems. Dr. Roberson’s previous research focused on advanced composite materials for implementation into systems including chemochromic hazardous gas sensing materials, organic electronics, batteries, and chemical hazmat suits. Luke served at the payload developer for VEGGIE and Advanced Plant habitat; both plant growth chambers for the International Space Station.  He has numerous published peer reviewed scientific journal publications and patents. He won the 2017 NASA Commercial Invention of the Year Award, 2014 R&D Magazine’s Award, the 2015 Southeastern Federal Lab Technology Transfer Award, and was nominated for the 2020 Space Technology Hall of Fame. He received a B.S. (1999), M.S. (2002), and Ph.D. (2005) from Georgia Tech.

Dr. Roberson has been an ACS member since 2001. He served on the ACS National Young Chemists Committee from 2007-2012 and currently serves as a member on the ACS IAC since 2013 and on the MPPG committee since 2020. As a member of the IAC, Luke was part of the inaugural International Chapter Summit and founded the International Young Chemists Network. He has been a career consultant since 2011.