ASTEROID INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Board Director Strategic Advisor
Clark is a planetary scientist whose research specializes in studies of asteroids and cratering of planetary surfaces using telescopes, spacecraft, and computers. He is former Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society and was the first editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. He is a winner of the DPS's Carl Sagan Award for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Sciences. Clark was on the science teams of the Galileo, Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR-Shoemaker), and MESSENGER missions.
Clark has a bachelor's degree in astronomy (Harvard), a master's in meteorology (MIT), and a PhD in planetary science (MIT). For many years he was at the Planetary Science Institute (SAIC) in Tucson, and he has recently retired from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, where he worked since 1996.
Job Titles:
- Strategic Advisor
- Strategic Advisor / Author
David is a best-selling author, astrophysicist, engineer, and philosopher whose future-oriented novels include The Postman and Earth. He won the Hugo Award for his novels Startide Rising and The Uplift War. He is a leading commentator on tech trends and is a featured speaker for over 100 government and business organizations.
David's nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. His newest novel Existence asks: "Billions of planets may be ripe for life, even intelligence. So where is everybody?"
David serves on advisory panels in astronomy, nanotechnology, tech ethics, SETI, and NASA innovative concepts.
Scott is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University where he focuses on planetary exploration, especially of Mars. He serves as the Director of the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation. Dr. Hubbard has been engaged in space-related research and program management for more than 35 years, including 20 years with NASA that culminated as director of NASA's Ames Research Center. He served as the sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board; was NASA's first Mars program director, and successfully restructured the entire Mars program in the wake of mission failures.
Scott is the founder of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. He conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission airbag landing, and was the manager for NASA's highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission. Prior to joining NASA, he led a technology start-up in Silicon Valley and was a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Dr. Hubbard has received many honors including NASA's highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. His book Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery, describes his work on NASA's Mars Program.
Job Titles:
- Institute Mission Director
Irwin Shapiro, the former Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has had a very localized geographical career - all in Cambridge - but has wandered widely in research, from study of the core of the Earth, through remote-sensing exploration of the solar system, to observation of the most distant known objects in the universe. He also originated and carried out solar-system tests of the general theory of relativity. The common thread tying these various topics together is his use of radio or radar techniques in all of these efforts.
Lord Martin Rees is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been the UK's Astronomer Royal since 1995 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has conducted extensive research on black holes, space astronomy and cosmology and writes and lectures widely to general audiences.
His books include Before the Beginning, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century-On Earth and Beyond and From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons.
Marc has worked with world-class telescopes around the globe, from portable telescopes in remote locations to space-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He has studied smaller bodies in the solar system from asteroids to comets, as well as satellites of the giant planets. He also has a deep and long-term interest in Pluto and his work has created maps of the surface of Pluto by using data from the HST.
Marc's work includes a leading role in the Deep Ecliptic Survey to discover and catalog objects near and beyond Pluto. He has worked on numerous instrument development projects from the first spectrograph to a faculty-class infrared imaging instrument in use today at the Lowell Observatory and has published more than 115 peer-reviewed research papers. In 1999, "Asteroid 7553 Buie" was named in honor of Marc's study of our solar system.
Roger is an astronomer and astrophysicist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, the Pehong and Adele Chen Director of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Professor of Physics and SLAC National Accelerator Lab. Previously he served as Director of the Lockheed Martin Space Exploration Systems, responsible for development and flight operations of the company's spacecraft. He also served as Program Manager for development of the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft and Cassini Spacecraft Propulsion Modules.
Scientist, astronogamer, astrophysicist, programmer, and YouTube star, Scott is known for his space-themed YouTube channel where he brings science into video games and teaches kids of all ages the math behind rocket science. Originally from Scotland, Scott spent a decade in academia studying astrophysics and computational physics at the University of Glasgow and Armagh Observatory where he focused on small bodies in the solar system and specifically the probabilities of collision. He left research in 1999 to move to California and work in the technology industry. When the video game Kerbal Space Program appeared, he became a public science figure through his YouTube videos explaining the game and the science involved. His videos have generated almost 200 million video views and 600,000 subscribers.
Tom is an astronaut and planetary scientist who has piloted B-52D bombers, studied asteroids for NASA, engineered intelligence-gathering systems for the CIA, and helped develop advanced mission concepts to explore the solar system. In his 11 years with NASA, he flew on four space shuttle missions, working and living in space for 53 days, including three spacewalks to install the centerpiece of the International Space Station. His publications include Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System and Hell Hawks! - the top-selling title at the National Air and Space Museum. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Tom holds a PhD in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona.