PERSONAL DATA: Born April 20, 1955 in Silverton, Oregon. Married. Two children.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Silverton Union High School, Silverton, Oregon, in 1973; received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Oregon State University in 1978; and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona in 1983.

EXPERIENCE: Staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico from 1984-1996. Projects included reduced gravity fluid flow and materials processing experiments on board the NASA KC-135 airplane, atmospheric spectroscopy measurements on noctolucent clouds seeded from sounding rocket payloads, volcano fumarole gas sampling on active volcanos, and problems in detonation physics applied to weapon systems. He was a member of the Synthesis Group, slated with assembling the technology to return to the moon and explore Mars (1990), and the Space Station Freedom Redesign Team (1993).

NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected by NASA in April 1996, Dr. Pettit reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Having completed two years of training and evaluation, he is qualified for flight selection as a mission specialist. Initially, he was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Computer Support Branch. Initially assigned as a backup crewmember, Dr. Pettit has now been assigned to the crew of Expedition-6, scheduled for launch in 2002, for a 4-month stay aboard the International Space Station.