Nick Kanas

Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco
Professionally, I received a B.A. degree from Stanford and an M.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. I interned at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, and received psychiatric residency training at the University of California, San Francisco. I now am an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and I directed the group therapy training program there and at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. In 2003, I received the J. Elliott Royer Award for excellence in Academic Psychiatry. I am a Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association. For over 20 years I conducted research in group therapy and wrote a book entitled Group Therapy for Schizophrenic Patients. My latest book in this area is Integrative Group Therapy for Psychosis: An Evidence-Based Approach.

For over 50 years I have written about space psychology and psychiatry. I have been the Principal Investigator of several NASA-funded and ESA-sponsored international psychological research projects involving astronauts and cosmonauts in space. In 1999, I received the Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Psychological and Psychiatric Aspects of Aerospace Medicine. In 2008, I received the International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Award. I am the co-author of the text book Space Psychology and Psychiatry, which won the 2004 International Acad­emy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award and is in its second edition. More recently, I have written a book for the general public entitled Humans in Space: The Psychological Hurdles, which won the 2016 International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award. In 2017, I gave the Psi Chi Keynote Speech on space psychology at the Eastern Psychological Association Convention in Boston; I was invited by the Buzz Aldrin Space Institute to participate in a Mars mission social sciences workshop at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and I was invited to give a series of lectures on space psychology to students at Beihang University, Beijing, China. My latest book came out in 2023 and is entitled Behavioral Health and Human Interactions in Space.

I have collected antiquarian celestial maps for over 30 years. I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London) and have given talks on the history of celestial cartography to amateur and professional groups. I have written many articles and two books on astronomical history and celestial mapping: Star Maps (now in its expanded, hard-bound third edition) and Solar System Maps.

I have been an amateur as­tronomer for over 50 years and have given talks at numerous amateur astronomy meetings and several World Science Fiction Conventions. I have written articles for Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, one of which won the annual readers’ poll award for the 2015 Best Fact Article. I also have published three science fiction novels: The New Martians, The Protos Mandate, and The Caloris Network.