Professor McCormack has made significant contributions to the US space program, as an Engineering Science professor at Dartmouth, and later as Chief of Operational Medicine at NASA. He subsequently served as Chief of Aerospace Medicine Research at the Naval Air Warfare Center. He received a US Navy Commendation Medal in 1998, and the German Navy Cross of Honor in 2000. A member of the UIC Bioengineering faculty since 2001, Professor McCormack serves on the Advisory Council for the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), and gives frequent invited talks on nanobiology and radiation damage.