David Mould/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1898/1600
RELEASE: 07-38
PLANETARY SCIENTIST SELECTED TO LEAD MISSION DIRECTORATE
WASHINGTON - NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced Monday that
Dr. S. Alan Stern will be the agency's associate administrator for
the Science Mission Directorate, effective April 2. Stern succeeds
Dr. Mary L. Cleave who announced her retirement.
Stern joins NASA from the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science
and Engineering Division, Boulder, Colo., where he has been serving
as executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division.
As chief executive of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Stern will
direct a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs
for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and the universe
beyond. In addition, he will manage a broad spectrum of grant-based
research programs and spacecraft projects to study Earth and the
universe.
Stern is a planetary scientist and an author who has published more
than 175 technical papers and 40 popular articles. His research has
focused on studies of our solar system's Kuiper belt and Oort cloud,
comets, satellites of the outer planets, Pluto and the search for
evidence of solar systems around other stars. He has worked on
spacecraft rendezvous theory, terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds,
galactic astrophysics and studies of tenuous satellite atmospheres,
including the atmosphere of the moon.
Stern has a long association with NASA, serving on the NASA Advisory
Council and as the principal investigator on a number of planetary
and lunar missions, including the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt
mission. He was the principal investigator of the Southwest
Ultraviolet Imaging System, which flew on two space shuttle missions,
STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999.
He has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories,
including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space
Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme
Ultraviolet Observer.
He holds bachelor's degrees in physics and astronomy and master's
degrees in aerospace engineering and planetary atmospheres from the
University of Texas, Austin. In 1989, Stern earned a doctorate in
astrophysics and planetary science from the University of Colorado at
Boulder.
He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with
both powered and sailplane ratings. Stern and his wife have three
children.
For more information about NASA and its suite of science programs,
visit the Internet at:
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