[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27854]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        ASTRONAUT ROBERT SATCHER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Yesterday, as STS-129 lifted off, there was a 
very definite glint of pride in my eyes and spring in my step because 
one of the astronauts on board was Mission Specialist Robert Satcher, 
doctor, chemical engineer, and native of Oak Park, Illinois, and the 
Seventh Congressional District.
  Dr. Satcher is the second astronaut to hail from Oak Park on the 
western border of Chicago. Any community to boast of such a record of 
producing astronauts deserves a second look, but for a community with 
just over 50,000 residents to accumulate such a record, something must 
be going on that is very right. But, of course, in the end, it is up to 
the individual to determine what to do with the circumstances of their 
lives.
  Dr. Robert Satcher has done some amazing things with his life. An 
orthopedic surgeon who practices at Northwestern Memorial and 
Children's Memorial hospitals, teaches at Northwestern University 
Medical School, does research at the Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center 
of Northwestern and the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology 
in Advanced Medicine at Northwestern, Dr. Satcher is a nephew of former 
U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. He is married to Dr. D'Juanna 
Satcher, and they have a daughter, Daija.
  Dr. Satcher was a Schweitzer Fellow at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital 
in Lambarene, Gabon, completed numerous medical missions for outreach 
care to underserved areas in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nigeria, Burkina 
Faso, and Gabon. He held internships at DuPont in the Textile Fibers 
Research Group and the Polymer Products Division.
  Growing up, he was a National Merit Scholar and received the Monsanto 
Award and the Albert G. Hill Award from MIT, fellowships from both the 
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the UNCF/Merck Research Foundation, 
and is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. He is a 
Leadership Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, ABC 
Fellow of the American Orthopedic Association, Bloomberg Leadership 
Fellow, and has completed 12 research grants and has 15 peer-review 
publications and over 25 presentations at national and international 
research meetings.
  He has been active in the Big Brother for Youth at Risk Counseling 
Program; Department of Corrections, San Francisco, California; a tutor 
for the Black Student Union tutorial program at MIT; the National 
Society of Black Engineers; the American Institute of Chemical 
Engineering; a supervising adult for Cub Scout Camp for Boys in 
Nashville, Tennessee; and he is a lay Episcopal minister with primary 
responsibility for visiting the sick and shut-in members of the church 
at St. Edmonds Episcopal Church in Chicago and St. James Episcopal 
Church in Houston.
  He was selected for Astronaut Candidate training by NASA in May of 
2004 and completed training in February of 2006. On STS-129, Dr. 
Satcher is scheduled to perform two EVAs--space walks--among other 
assignments. For those who want to follow Dr. Satcher on Twitter, he 
will be tweeting as astro_bones and ZeroG_MD.
  Godspeed to you, Dr. Satcher. Bobby, you have a lot of fans back on 
Earth, and especially those in Oak Park, Illinois.

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