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Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies (2010)

Chapter: Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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C
Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information

COMMITTEE TO REVIEW NEAR-EARTH-OBJECT SURVEYS AND HAZARD MITIGATION STRATEGIES

IRWIN I. SHAPIRO, Chair, is the former director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (1983-2004), where one of his institutional responsibilities was overseeing the Minor Planet Center. He, his students, and his colleagues made the first detections of asteroids and comets ever made by radar. He has also recently developed a large-screen script focusing on near-Earth objects (NEOs), which includes issues surrounding impact prevention. Dr. Shapiro has been awarded nine medals and prizes for his research, and in 1997 he became the first Timken University Professor at Harvard University. His research involves applications of radio and radar techniques in astrophysics, geophysics, planetary physics, and tests of gravitational theories. Dr. Shapiro is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His most recent National Research Council (NRC) experience was that of serving on the Panel on Astronomy Education and Policy of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee. He has also reviewed several NRC draft reports.


MICHAEL A’HEARN, Vice Chair, is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was the principal investigator (PI) for the Deep Impact mission and is the PI for the EPOXI mission in NASA’s Discovery Program and for the Small Bodies Node of NASA’s Planetary Data System. His research interests include comets and asteroids, and his theoretical work focuses on the physical and chemical properties of comets. He has also worked on the development of techniques for determining sizes of cometary nuclei that combine optical and infrared measurements. Dr. A’Hearn is a member of the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences. His prior NRC service includes the Panel on Primitive Bodies of the Committee on a New Science Strategy for Solar System Exploration.


FAITH VILAS, Vice Chair, is the director of the MMT Observatory at Mount Hopkins, Arizona. She served as chair of NASA’s Small Bodies Assessment Group. She has previously worked as chief of the planetary astronomy group in NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate and as a research scientist at JSC. From 1987 to 1988, she served as a field team participant for the Antarctic Meteorite Expedition. She was principal investigator for the Debris Collision Warning Sensors Space Transportation System flight experiment to observe orbital debris in the visible and thermal infrared spectral regions (1987-1992). Dr. Vilas was also a member of the Space Surveillance PI Team for the Mid-Course Space Experiment satellite in charge

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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of conducting experiments to observe human-made orbital debris with visible and thermal infrared sensors. She was also a member of the Joint Science Team for the Japanese Hayabusa space probe that orbited and landed on near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. Much of her experience lies in using ground- and space-based telescopes. She was part of the science team that discovered Neptune’s rings 5 years before confirmation from the 1989 Voyager mission.


ANDREW F. CHENG is chief scientist of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He was responsible for the overall integrity of science returns from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission and is the lead for science data analysis and archiving, science planning, and conflict resolution among NEAR science requirements. He was an interdisciplinary scientist for the Galileo mission to Jupiter, investigating magnetospheric physics at Jupiter, and is a co-investigator on the Magnetospheric Imaging team on the Cassini mission to Saturn and Titan. Dr. Cheng was named Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist in 1985 and has received five NASA Group Achievement Awards since then. He has authored more than 160 scientific articles. He served on the NRC Task Group on the Forward Contamination of Europa and on the Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.


FRANK CULBERTSON, JR., is a former astronaut and a retired U.S. Navy captain. He is senior vice president and deputy general manager of the Advanced Program Group at Orbital Sciences Corporation where he is responsible for human spaceflight programs, including commercial transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to joining Orbital, Mr. Culbertson was a senior vice president at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), initially as program manager of the Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance contract at NASA, before progressing to business unit general management and directorship of SAIC’s Global Climate Change Programs. Mr. Culbertson was a NASA astronaut for 18 years in a variety of critical spaceflight and management roles for NASA’s space shuttle and space station programs, including three launches aboard the space shuttle and command of the ISS. In total, he has logged more than 144 days in space and more than 5 hours of extravehicular activity (space walk) experience. Mr. Culbertson also served as program manager of the Shuttle-Mir Program for 3 years and as deputy program manager for operations for the ISS program.


DAVID C. JEWITT is a professor in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences and the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles. He has focused his research on studying the vast population of small icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt at and beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. He has also studied comets and other primitive bodies of the solar system, many of which are evolved Kuiper Belt objects. Dr. Jewitt is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has previously served on several NRC committees, including the Committee on a New Science Strategy for Solar System Exploration and the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee.


STEPHEN MACKWELL is the director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Mackwell served as the director of the Bayerisches Geoinstitut at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Dr. Mackwell has served as program director for geophysics, Division of Earth Sciences, National Science Foundation (NSF; 1993-1994); as member, group chief, and panel chair of the review panel for NASA’s Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program; as expert reviewer for the Department of Energy’s Geosciences Research Program (1993); and as expert consultant for the Division of Earth Sciences, National Science Foundation (1995). Dr. Mackwell conducts laboratory-based research into the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of geological materials under conditions relevant to the mantle and crust of Earth and other terrestrial planets. He served on the NRC Committee on New Opportunities in Solar System Exploration.


H. JAY MELOSH is Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Physics at Purdue University. Some of Dr. Melosh’s previous positions include professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, associate professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, and associate professor of geophysics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has made many important contributions to

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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Earth and planetary sciences, including definitive studies of the collisional origin of the Moon and the process of impact cratering. His other major contributions include acoustic fluidization, dynamic topography, and planetary tectonics. He is active in astrobiological studies relating chiefly to microorganism exchange between the terrestrial planets. Dr. Melosh is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the NRC Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.


JOSEPH H. ROTHENBERG is currently an independent consultant. From 2002 until 2009 he was president and a member of the board of directors of Universal Space Network. From 1964 until 1983 he held space program technical, project, and executive management positions in industry. In 1983 he joined the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and in 1995 became center director, where he was responsible for space systems development and operations and for the execution of the scientific research program for NASA Earth-orbiting science missions. In January 1998, he moved to NASA Headquarters where he was named associate administrator for space flight and was in charge of NASA’s human exploration and development of space. As associate administrator, Mr. Rothenberg was responsible for establishing policies and direction for the space shuttle and ISS programs, as well as for space communications and expendable launch services. He is widely recognized for leading the development and successful completion of the first servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, which corrected the telescope’s flawed optics. Mr. Rothenberg served on the NRC Committee on Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Committee on Meeting the Workforce Needs for the National Vision for Space Exploration, and the Beyond Einstein Program Assessment Committee.

SURVEY/DETECTION PANEL

FAITH VILAS, Chair (see above)


PAUL ABELL is a research scientist employed by the Planetary Science Institute and assigned to the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center. He has been studying NEOs and comet-asteroid transition objects for more than 8 years and has numerous scientific publications. His primary scientific interest is in determining the physical characteristics of NEOs using ground-based telescopes and spacecraft sensors. Dr. Abell was a telemetry officer for the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft Near-Infrared Spectrometer team and is a member of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph science team for the Hayabusa spacecraft operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. He is also a visiting astronomer at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii and has had extensive experience in obtaining high-quality spectral data of NEOs. Dr. Abell was recently involved in an internal NASA study to examine the feasibility of sending a human-led mission to a NEO using the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.


ROBERT F. ARENTZ is an engineer who has worked at Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation for 34 years and now works in Ball’s Civil and Operational Space Division. For the past 3 years he has led a small team exploring ground-augmented space-based solutions using high-heritage flight hardware and commercially available sensors to detect NEOs. He and his team looked at a variety of observatory orbits for detecting hard-to-detect “sunward” NEOs. He and his team have also created cost models for their most recent infrared detection designs. For the past 10 years, Mr. Arentz has participated in several concept studies for possible Discovery-class deep-space missions. His program experience includes work on Ball’s Skylab instruments, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, the Cosmic Origins Background Explorer, the near-infrared camera NICMOS now on the Hubble Space Telescope, and he contributed to some elements of the Spitzer Space Telescope.


LANCE A.M. BENNER is a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he specializes in the radar imaging of NEOs. He was an NRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 3 years beginning in 1995 and has been a JPL employee since 1998. He has been the first author or has co-authored more than 40 papers on NEOs, main-belt asteroids, and comets. He is a frequent observer at NSF’s Arecibo Observatory and at NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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WILLIAM F. BOTTKE is the assistant director of the Department for Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Bottke is also the director of the Center for Lunar Origin and Evolution of NASA’s Lunar Science Institute. His research interests include the collisional and dynamical evolution of small-body populations throughout the solar system (e.g., asteroids, comets, irregular satellites, Kuiper Belt objects, meteoroids, dust) and the formation and bombardment history of planetesimals, planets, and satellites. His expertise related to NEOs involves their delivery from their source regions in various asteroid and cometary populations to their observed orbits. By combining models of the dynamical evolution of NEOs to observational data, Dr. Bottke and his colleagues have estimated the debiased orbital and size distribution of the NEO population. He received a B.S. in physics and astrophysics from the University of Minnesota in 1988 and a Ph.D. in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 1995. He has also been a postdoctoral fellow at both the California Institute of Technology (1996-1997) and Cornell University (1997-2000).


WILLIAM E. BURROWS is an aerospace writer and historian. He is former professor of journalism at New York University where he worked for 33 years and was the founder of its graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. He covered aviation and space for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. He is currently a contributing editor at Air & Space/Smithsonian and the author of 11 books, including This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age; Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security; and The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth. He was recently selected for the American Astronautics Society’s 2008 John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award.


ANDREW F. CHENG (see above)


ROBERT D. CULP is a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 1966 Dr. Culp received early recognition for applying Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle to optimal impulsive orbit transfer, thus completing the rigorous solution of this popular problem. From 1969 through 1975, Dr. Culp published the complete theoretical solution to the problem of optimal hyperbolic flyby. These definitive results have allowed the application of this optimal transfer technique to many multiplanet missions. He has developed less restrictive and more accurate solutions to the basic problem of satellite drag and decay. He has made significant and lasting contributions to orbit determination techniques, atmospheric entry theory, and optimal atmospheric flight mechanics. In recent years, Dr. Culp has become one of the leading authorities on space debris, satellite fragmentation modeling, hazard to resident space objects, and the space environment. He previously served on the NRC’s Committee on International Space Station Meteoroid/Debris Risk Management.


YANGA (YAN) FERNANDEZ is an assistant professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Fernandez completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Maryland on the thermophysical properties of cometary nuclei. He was a Spitzer Space Telescope Fellow at the University of Hawaii from 2002 to 2005. Dr. Fernandez’s research area is astronomy, specifically planetary science with an emphasis on the small bodies of the solar system. His overarching goal is to understand the thermal, physical, and compositional environment at the time of the solar system’s creation. Some of Dr. Fernandez’s projects involve the use of the Spitzer Space Telescope. He also uses telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii, and Chile to study active comets, dormant comets, NEOs, and outer solar system objects.


LYNNE JONES is currently the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Science Fellow at the University of Washington, where some of her responsibilities include evaluating the LSST’s potential detection efficiency for NEOs under various survey strategies; testing moving-object processing software; and evaluating the LSST’s capabilities to measure light curves, photometric colors, and physical properties of asteroids. Dr. Jones is also a member of the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey collaboration, which has conducted an extensive wide-field, well-characterized survey for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Dr. Jones previously carried out a deep survey for TNOs, developing a new digital tracking method to search for TNOs fainter than the limiting magnitude in each

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×

individual image. She was an NSF International Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from 2002 to 2004 and a Legacy Survey Fellow at the UBC/Herzburg Institute of Astrophysics from 2004 to 2006.


STEPHEN MACKWELL (see above)


AMY MAINZER is a research scientist at JPL where she specializes in spacecraft instrumentation. She worked at Lockheed Martin on the Spitzer Space Telescope. She was the principal investigator of a cryogenic camera called the Pointing Calibration and Reference Sensor, which serves as the fine guidance sensor for Spitzer. She worked on Spitzer part time while in graduate school. Dr. Mainzer received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, followed by a NASA Graduate Research Fellowship. For her thesis, she built the First Light Camera for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy airborne telescope and observed brown dwarfs. As the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) deputy project scientist, she works to ensure that WISE will meet its science requirements. Dr. Mainzer’s research interests include brown dwarfs, asteroids, and planetary atmospheres. She is the principal investigator of the NEOWISE task, which is an enhancement to the baseline WISE mission that will enable the discovery of new asteroids with WISE. She is also leading an effort to build the first megapixel mid-infrared array designed for high-background operations.


GORDON H. PETTENGILL is a retired professor who first came into prominence for his discovery in 1965 of the unexpected 2/3 spin/orbital period resonance of the planet Mercury, using radar astronomical techniques. Beginning with the first application of coherent Earth-based radar to studies of the Moon in 1959, his observations have embraced Mercury, Venus, Mars, several asteroids and comets, the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn. He was the principal investigator for the Radar Mapper Experiment carried out on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter from 1978 through 1981. Since then he has been the principal investigator for the Magellan (Venus-radar-mapping) mission. Dr. Pettengill has been affiliated primarily with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first with the Lincoln Laboratory and then as professor in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences. He served as the associate director (1963-1965) and later as the director (1968-1970) of Cornell University’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Dr. Pettengill retired from MIT in 1995, but he has remained active in research since then, primarily with the Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter experiment aboard the Mars Global Surveyor, launched in 1996 and still in orbit around that planet. He was awarded the Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society and the Whitten Medal and the Fred Whipple Award, both from the American Geophysical Union. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He previously served on the Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.


JOHN RICE is an emeritus professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Rice’s research interests revolve around the applications of statistics, especially to the natural sciences. He is particularly interested in modeling and analyzing data that arise from random processes. His recent research has focused on detecting objects in the outer regions of the solar system (the Kuiper Belt) and detecting gamma-ray pulsars, and on developing methods to detect very rare, faint events in very large quantities of data. He is the author of Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis, former editor of the Annals of Statistics, and the recipient of the Jerome Sacks Award for Interdisciplinary Research. Dr. Rice is a former member of the NRC’s Board on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications.

MITIGATION PANEL

MICHAEL A’HEARN, Chair (see above)


MICHAEL J.S. BELTON is currently the president of his own research company, Belton Space Exploration Initiatives, LLC, and an emeritus astronomer at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO). He was an astronomer at the KPNO Division of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Arizona (1964-2000). He is a specialist in observational and interpretive planetary science with emphasis on the application of high-resolution

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×

spectroscopy and photometric imaging from Earth-based telescopes and interplanetary spacecraft. His primary scientific interests are in the physics of cometary nuclei and the physics of planetary atmospheres, particularly that of Jupiter’s satellite Io. He has published more than 240 refereed scientific articles. He was a member of the Mariner 10 Imaging team and a co-investigator on the Mariner 10 and Voyager Ultraviolet Spectrometer investigations. He served as the leader of the Galileo Imaging Science Team and was the deputy principal investigator and a member of the science teams on the CONTOUR and Deep Impact missions. Currently he is a member of the science teams on the Stardust-NExT and EPOXI (DIXI) missions. Dr. Belton is a science co-investigator in the Stardust-NExT project. In 1995 he received the American Astronomical Society, Division of Planetary Sciences’ Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in Planetary Science. He is also the recipient of a number of NASA Group Achievement Awards. Dr. Belton was born in the United Kingdom in 1934 and educated at St. Andrews University in Scotland (B. Sc. [1st class Hons], 1959) and at the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1964). He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1975. In 2001 he chaired the NRC’s decadal survey on solar system exploration.


MARK BOSLOUGH is a physicist at the Sandia National Laboratories. He has served as principal investigator on a number of projects involving shock/impact physics, climate change, evolutionary computing, and agent-based modeling. He has used impact experiments as a research tool to understand high-pressure equations of state, shock metamorphism, shock chemistry, the evolution of planetary materials, and protection of spacecraft from micrometeorites. Since his focus shifted to computational research, he has led projects to develop a parallelized paleoclimate code, simulate impact-induced climate change, apply evolutionary computing methods, create models for conflict related to climate change, use learning algorithms for problems in physics and security, assess technology to defend Earth from an impact, understand the physics of low-altitude airbursts, and quantify the contribution of airbursts to the impact threat. He received his B.S. degree in physics from Colorado State University and his M.S. degree and Ph.D. in applied physics (with a geophysics minor) from the California Institute of Technology.


CLARK R. CHAPMAN is a senior scientist in the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where he has worked since 1996, following 24 years at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona (part of SAIC). He also sits on the board of directors of the B612 Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that advocates for near-Earth object education and ultimately a real-life demonstration of an asteroid deflection. Dr. Chapman is a past chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society, and in 1999 he received the DPS’s Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Sciences. He is a past president of Commission 15 (Physical Properties of Asteroids and Comets) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). He is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Meteoritical Society. Dr. Chapman was the first editor for the Planets section of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He has been on the imaging and/or spectroscopy teams of the Galileo, NEAR-Shoemaker, and MESSENGER missions. He has researched every planet in the solar system while focusing on small bodies (especially asteroids) and on impact cratering of planetary surfaces. He is currently a member of the International Astronautical Federation’s Technical Committee on Near-Earth Objects. Dr. Chapman has served in some advisory capacity to many NASA NEO studies, including participating in a 2006 workshop at which he presented a paper to the NASA Near Earth Object Survey and Deflection Study. He obtained his Ph.D. in planetary science at MIT, writing a thesis on spectral reflectance studies of asteroids. He previously served on the NRC Task Group on Sample Return from Small Solar System Bodies, and the Study Team on Primitive Bodies.


SIGRID CLOSE is an assistant professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Prior to coming to Stanford University, she was a project leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a technical staff member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, where she led programs to characterize meteoroids and meteoroid plasma using high-power radars. She also was the lead space physicist for spacecraft monitoring and unplanned space surveillance events and was a project leader for characterizing and modeling ionospheric plasma instabilities. Her current research area is in space weather and satellite systems, which includes characterizing and mitigating environmental risks to spacecraft, detecting, and characterizing interstellar dust, signal processing and monitoring using radio-frequency satellite systems, and plasma modeling for remote

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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sensing. Her honors and awards include the Joe D. Marshall Award given by Air Force Technical Applications Center for Outstanding Technical Briefing, MIT Lincoln Scholar from 2000 through 2004, and first place in the student paper competition at the International Union of Radio Science in 2002. She is also currently vice chair of Commission G. She received her Ph.D. in astronomy (space physics) from Boston University in 2004 in the area of meteoroid physics and risk assessment.


JAMES A. DATOR is a professor and director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Dr. Dator is also the co-director of the Space and Society Department at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, and a fellow and member of the Executive Council of the World Academy of Art and Science. His areas of specialization include political futures studies (especially the forecasting and design of new political institutions, and the futures of law, education, and technology); and space and society, especially the design of governance systems for space settlement. Dr. Dator was an adviser to the Hawaii State Commission in 2000 and has consulted with state futures commissions for Florida, Illinois, and Oregon. He has been a futures consultant for the Federal Judicial Center and several federal district courts; for the state judiciaries of Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, and Virginia; and for the national judiciaries of New Zealand, Singapore, and the Federated States of Micronesia, as well as the American Bar Association, the American Judicature Society, numerous state bar associations, law firms, other legal organizations, industry, and the military.


DAVID S.P. DEARBORN is a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). His current research on the diversion of asteroids by nuclear explosives mixes his background in astrophysics and nuclear weapons effects; this research creates detailed modeling of the effects of nuclear explosives on asteroids. His programmatic work has included the design and testing of both nuclear and conventional explosives. Dr. Dearborn’s current responsibilities include generating models and output for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Red Book, support of the LLNL reusable-vehicle flight-test program, and conventional lethality studies. He has used large lasers for the study of high energy density phenomena, studied nonseismic methods for treaty verification, and designed a shuttle experiment. He is currently involved in Djehuty, a project for the full three-dimensional modeling of stars, which recently led to the discovery of a new mixing mechanism that resolves a decades-old conflict between predicted and observed abundances. He has received three Weapons Recognition of Excellence awards from the Department of Energy, recognizing his contributions to the development of the laser hohlraum (a laboratory device to produce blackbody radiation, used in thermonuclear testing experiments), his work in advancing the analysis of radar data, and for his efforts on the W87 Life Extension Program. In 2006, he received an acknowledgment from the Defense and Nuclear Technologies Directorate at LLNL for the outstanding contributions of the cross-discipline improvement of intercontinental ballistic missile accuracy.


KEITH A. HOLSAPPLE is a professor in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at the University of Washington. His background is in engineering mechanics and numerical methods, and his research interests are now focused on the planetary sciences of the small bodies of the solar system. His recent studies include the definition of the material behavior of those bodies, and models to describe those in computer studies. He has formulated and solved the problem of the equilibrium shapes, spins, and tidal disruptions of solid asteroid bodies using the models of soil and rock mechanics, generalizing the well-known and classical fluid models of Maclaurin, Jacobi, Roche, and others. He has been active in the studies of mitigation methods for Earth-threatening asteroids and has presented talks at various meetings sponsored by American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and NASA. Dr. Holsapple has also performed code calculations of mitigation both by impacts and by nuclear weapons.


DAVID Y. KUSNIERKIEWICZ is the chief engineer of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he has worked for 26 years. He has an extensive background in designing, integrating, and testing power system electronics for spacecraft. Mr. Kusnierkiewicz held the position of mission system engineer for the NASA New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper-Belt Mission (launched January 19, 2006) and is still the mission and spacecraft system engineer for the NASA Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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Dynamics (TIMED) program, which launched in December 2001. He has served on numerous review boards for NASA missions, including Lunar Reconnaissance Obiter; Lunar Robotic Explorer; Dawn, Juno, and ST-8 (part of the New Millennium Program); and he has received two NASA Group Achievement Awards. Prior to working as a system engineer, he spent more than 10 years designing spaceflight hardware. Mr. Kusnierkiewicz received his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.


PAULO LOZANO is an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. His research interests are electric propulsion, electrosprays, thruster physics, electrochemical microfabrication, engine-health monitoring, and space mission design. He teaches in the areas of space, rocket, and air-breathing propulsion; plasma physics; and experimental projects. His current research efforts include nontraditional configurations for Hall-effect plasma thrusters and their ability to propel spacecraft. Professor Lozano started at MIT in 2003 as a postdoctoral associate and then became a research scientist before attaining his current position in 2006. He is a member of AIAA and of the American Physical Society. Professor Lozano received his M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT.


EDWARD D. McCULLOUGH is a retired principal scientist at the Boeing Company. He received his professional training in nuclear engineering through the U.S. Navy and the Bettis and Knowles Atomic Power Laboratories (gaining his Certification for Nuclear Engineering at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in 1975). Mr. McCullough focused on concept development experimental chemistry and advanced technology at Rockwell Space Systems Advanced Engineering and at the Boeing divisions of Phantom Works and Integrated Defense Systems. He has researched innovative methods to reduce the 10- to 20-year development time of technologies and systems down to 5 years. He has experienced successes in the area of chemistry and chemical engineering for extraterrestrial processing and photonics for vehicle management systems and in integrated vehicle health management and communications. Mr. McCullough has led efforts for biologically inspired multiparallax geometric situational awareness for advanced autonomous mobility and space manufacturing. He recently developed several patents, including patents for an angular sensing system, a method for enhancing the digestion reaction rates of chemical systems; and a system for mechanically stabilizing a bed of particulate media. He is the chair emeritus of the AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee, a member of the board of trustees for the University Space Research Association, a member of the Science Council for Research’s Institute for Advanced Computer Science, and a charter member of the AIAA Space Exploration Program Committee. Mr. McCullough previously served on the NRC Committee to Review NASA’s Exploration Technology Development Programs and on the Planning Committee for the Workshop on Research Enabled by the Lunar Environment.


H. JAY MELOSH (see above)


DAVID J. NASH is a retired rear admiral of the U.S. Navy and the president of Dave Nash and Associates, LLC, a project development firm serving businesses and governments around the world. RADM Nash has more than four decades of experience in building, design, and program management for both the U.S. Navy and the private sector. His experience includes the management of multibillion-dollar physical asset programs, including the U.S. Navy’s shore installations worldwide and the reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure. Most recently, RADM Nash served as the director of the Iraq Program Management Office under the Coalition Provisional Authority and later as the director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office under the U.S. Department of State. Under his direction, these organizations managed the $18.4-billion Iraq infrastructure reconstruction program. RADM Nash is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Society of American Military Engineers Golden Eagle Award, the Beavers Award for Heavy Engineering Construction, the American Society of Civil Engineers John I. Parcel-Leif J. Sverdrup Award for Civil Engineering Management, and the Civil Engineering Research Foundation/International Institute of Energy Conservation Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering “for leadership in the reconstruction of devastated areas after conflicts and natural disasters.” RADM Nash currently serves on the NRC Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment, and the Committee Toward Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Systems: Framing the Challenges Workshop.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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DANIEL J. SCHEERES is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a member of the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. Prior to this, he held faculty positions in aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan (1999-2008) and Iowa State University (1997-1999) and was a member of the technical staff in the Navigation Systems Section at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1992-1997). His research interests include the dynamics, control and navigation of spacecraft trajectories; the design of space missions; optimal control; planetary science; celestial mechanics; and dynamical astronomy. He is a fellow of the American Astronautical Society (AAS), and is an associate fellow of the AIAA. He serves on the AAS Space Flight Mechanics Committee and the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee. He is a member of the Celestial Mechanics Institute and the IAU. He is an associate editor for Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, the Journal of Nonlinear Science, the Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, and the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences. He is the recipient of two NASA Group Awards for his work on the NEAR mission, and Asteroid 8887 is named “Scheeres” in recognition of his contributions to the scientific understanding of the dynamical environment about asteroids. He was awarded his Ph.D., M.S.E., and B.S.E. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, and holds a B.S. in letters and engineering from Calvin College.


SARAH T. STEWART-MUKHOPADHYAY is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She has more than 12 years of experience in studying impact cratering and conducting shock wave experiments. In 2004, she established the Shock Compression Laboratory at Harvard that focuses on Earth and planetary science topics and on training new experimentalists in shock wave research. Her current research includes experimental programs on shock temperature and the effects of porosity and volatility on shock wave propagation. Dr. Stewart also leads the development of numerical techniques for simulations of impact events. Her current work in that area includes improvements in equations of state and strength models in the shock physics code CTH. Her research interests include the experimental and computational study of impact processes to interpret the resurfacing history, physical properties, and internal structure of planets. She is a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Dr. Stewart received a B.A. in astronomy and astrophysics and physics from Harvard University in 1995 and a Ph.D. in planetary sciences (minor in astrophysics) from the California Institute of Technology in 2002.


KATHRYN C. THORNTON is assistant dean of and professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. Dr. Thornton has extensive human spaceflight experience and served for 12 years as a NASA astronaut, flying on four shuttle missions and performing extravehicular activities (i.e., spacewalks) on two of them. She also headed the NASA Johnson Space Center education working group, which coordinated the educational outreach activities of astronauts and professional educators working under the “Teaching from Space” contract with Oklahoma State University. Before becoming a member of the space program, she coauthored more than 30 scientific publications and was a staff physicist for the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center for 4 years. Dr. Thornton has previously served on the NRC Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, the Committee for Technological Literacy, and the Committee on Meeting the Workforce Needs for the National Vision for Space Exploration.

STAFF

DWAYNE A. DAY, Study Director, a program officer for the NRC’s Space Studies Board (SSB), has a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University and previously served as an investigator for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He was on the staff of the Congressional Budget Office and also worked for the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University. He has held Guggenheim and Verville fellowships and is an associate editor of the German spaceflight magazine Raumfahrt Concrete, in addition to writing for such publications as Novosti Kosmonavtiki (Russia), Spaceflight, and Space Chronicle (United Kingdom). He has served as study director for several NRC reports, including Space Radiation Hazards and the Vision for Space Explora-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×

tion (2006), Grading NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program: A Midterm Review (2008), and Opening New Frontiers in Space: Choices for the Next New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity (2008).


PAUL JACKSON, Study Director, is a program officer for the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB). He joined the NRC in 2006 and was previously the media relations contact for the Office of News and Public Information. He is the study director for a number of ASEB’s projects, including proposal reviews for the state of Ohio and the Committee for the Review of NASA’s Aviation Safety Related Programs. Mr. Jackson earned a B.A. in philosophy from Michigan State University in 2002 and an M.P.A in policy analysis, economic development, and comparative international affairs from Indiana University in 2006.


DAVID H. SMITH, Senior Program Officer, joined the staff of the SSB in 1991. He is the senior staff officer and study director for a variety of NRC activities, including the solar system exploration decadal survey. He also organizes the SSB’s summer intern program and supervises most, if not all, of the interns. He received a B.Sc. in mathematical physics from the University of Liverpool in 1976 and a D.Phil. in theoretical astrophysics from Sussex University in 1981. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Queen Mary College, University (1980-1982), he held the position of associate editor and, later, technical editor of Sky and Telescope. Immediately prior to joining the staff of the Space Studies Board, Dr. Smith was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1990-1991).


ABIGAIL A. SHEFFER is an associate program officer with the SSB. She first came to the SSB in the fall of 2009 as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow working with Dr. David Smith. Dr. Sheffer received her Ph.D. in planetary science from the University of Arizona and her A.B. in geosciences from Princeton University. Her most recent research involved studying the chemical changes in rocks that have undergone high pressure and temperature events such as meteorite impacts and lightning strikes.


LEWIS GROSWALD is a research associate and joined the SSB as the Autumn 2008 Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern. Mr. Groswald is a second-year graduate student pursuing his master’s degree in international science and technology policy at the George Washington University. A graduate of the George Washington University, he studied international affairs, with a double concentration in conflict and security and Europe and Eurasia as an undergraduate. Following his work with the National Space Society during his senior year at the university, Mr. Groswald decided to pursue a career in space policy, educating the public on space issues, and formulating policy.


VICTORIA SWISHER joined the SSB in 2006 as a research associate. Her most recent research focused on laboratory astrophysics and involved studying the x rays of plasma, culminating in a senior thesis entitled “Modeling UV and X-ray Spectra from the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment.” She has presented results of her research at the 2005 and 2006 AAS meetings and at various Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium undergraduate research conferences. She received a B.A. in astronomy from Swarthmore College. Ms. Swisher left the SSB in August 2009 to pursue a master’s degree in international policy studies, with a focus on nonproliferation, at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.


CATHERINE A. GRUBER, editor, joined the SSB as a senior program assistant in 1995. Ms. Gruber first came to the NRC in 1988 as a senior secretary for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board and also worked as an outreach assistant for the National Science Resources Center. She was a research assistant (chemist) in the National Institute of Mental Health’s Laboratory of Cell Biology for 2 years. She has a B.A. in natural science from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.


ANDREA M. REBHOLZ joined the ASEB as a program associate in January 2009. She began her career at the National Academies in October 2005 as a senior program assistant for the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation. Prior to the Academies, she worked in the communications department

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×

of a D.C.-based think tank. Ms. Rebholz graduated from George Mason University’s New Century College in 2003 with a B.A. in integrative studies−event management and has more than 7 years of experience in event planning.


RODNEY N. HOWARD joined the SSB as a senior project assistant in 2002. Before he joined SSB, most of his vocational life was spent in the health profession—as a pharmacy technologist at Doctor’s Hospital in Lanham, Maryland, and as an interim center administrator at the Concentra Medical Center in Jessup, Maryland. During that time, he participated in a number of Quality Circle Initiatives that were designed to improve relations between management and staff. Mr. Howard obtained his B.A. in communications from the University of Baltimore County in 1983. He plans to begin coursework next year for his master’s degree in business administration.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Committee, Panel, and Staff Biographical Information." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
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The United States spends approximately $4 million each year searching for near-Earth objects (NEOs). The objective is to detect those that may collide with Earth. The majority of this funding supports the operation of several observatories that scan the sky searching for NEOs. This, however, is insufficient in detecting the majority of NEOs that may present a tangible threat to humanity. A significantly smaller amount of funding supports ways to protect the Earth from such a potential collision or "mitigation."

In 2005, a Congressional mandate called for NASA to detect 90 percent of NEOs with diameters of 140 meters of greater by 2020. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies identifies the need for detection of objects as small as 30 to 50 meters as these can be highly destructive. The book explores four main types of mitigation including civil defense, "slow push" or "pull" methods, kinetic impactors and nuclear explosions. It also asserts that responding effectively to hazards posed by NEOs requires national and international cooperation. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies is a useful guide for scientists, astronomers, policy makers and engineers.

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