The U.S. Secretary of Transportation has appointed Mark J. Sundahl, Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Administration at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, to the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee. The committee advises the Office of Commercial Space Transportation within the Federal Aviation Administration regarding new regulations governing private space activity.

Sundahl is a leading expert on the law of outer space and focuses primarily on the business, legal and policy issues arising from the recent increase in private space activity. He has lectured around the world on space law and his writings have appeared in leading academic journals. He recently completed a term as Assistant Secretary of the International Institute of Space Law headquartered in Paris, and was a member of the working group that was charged with drafting a new international treaty on the finance of satellites and other space assets — the UNIDROIT Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment. Earlier this year, Prof. Sundahl served as the co-coordinator of the 55th Annual Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space in Naples, Italy.

Sundahl has made multiple media appearances, most recently in the New York Times where he commented on potential liability for damage caused by the reentry of a NASA satellite. He holds a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and a Ph.D. in Classics from Brown University. Prior to joining the faculty at Cleveland-Marshall, he was an associate in the International Transactions Group at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in San Francisco.