David J. Fitts, an alumnus of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, will return to the U of A campus to deliver the school's 2025 Spring Commencement address.

Commencement for the school's class of 2025 will take place at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 10, in Barnhill Arena on the U of A campus.

Fitts is the former chief of the Habitability and Human Factors Office and former associate chief of the Human Systems Integration Division, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

A Fort Smith, Arkansas, native, Fitts began his studies at the University of Arkansas in electrical engineering. Four years later, he decided a career change was in order, and he enrolled in the university's School of Architecture. Graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1980, Fitts worked as an independent designer in the region, mostly on historic restoration and renovation projects.

Smitten with the fledgling personal computer revolution in 1981, Fitts learned home computing hardware and software. Given the promise of the Digital Revolution, he enrolled in an electrical engineering graduate program. Shortly after, however, an opportunity arose to apply as a support contractor to NASA's Johnson Space Center. He was hired and two years later became a NASA civil servant in the Space Shuttle Program Office. A 27-year career at NASA ensued.

Always walking a line between engineering and architecture, in 1994, Fitts decided to engage with a group at the Johnson Space Center that specialized in Habitability — the art and science of ensuring accommodations for extreme environments are not only safe and functional, but also provide for quality of life during long-duration missions. Other specialties in this team included Human Factors (the study of man-machine interfaces), bio-mechanical form and fit, volume management, and food provisioning. By 2003, Fitts became manager of the Johnson Space Center's Habitability and Human Factors Office, a position he held for 10 years.

In his final years at NASA, Fitts focused on promoting an agency-wide emphasis and approach to Human-Centered Design. Known as "Human Systems Integration," he worked with the Department of Defense and other NASA centers. He was ultimately successful in integrating Human-Centered Design into NASA's primary design instruction, the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook. In this way, his work in Human Systems Integration lives on.

Having had the good fortune to have worked at the heart of the three major human spaceflight programs in his day — Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Constellation — Fitts retired at the beginning of 2015. He has since focused on his many hobbies and traveled around the world with his husband, Bert Magh, who he met at NASA 37 years ago.

More details about the 2025 Spring Commencement, as well as live streaming and parking information, can be found on the Fay Jones School website.