Anderson regularly teaches courses in spaceflight mechanics, aerospace vehicle systems design, and aerospace systems control. Anderson earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in mechanical engineering and his master鈥檚 degree in dynamic systems and control from the University of California at Berkeley. Then, he worked in the areas of dynamics, structural dynamics, and controls for TRW Space and Technology in Redondo Beach, which is now part of Northrop-Grumman Space Systems. He earned a doctoral degree in applied and computational mechanics from Stanford University. Then, Anderson served as researcher and principal dynamics engineer at TRW where he was associated with various spacecraft and research programs. Next, he was invited to Germany for a two-year period as a visiting scholar, lecturer, and research fellow at the Technische Hochscule - Darmstadt. Anderson joined the faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Applied Mechanics, and Aviation at The Ohio State University in Columbus, where he remained until coming to RPI in 1995.
Anderson is a member of the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the US Association of Computational Mechanics (USACM), the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi.