Public Talk

We are very excited to have Dr. Alan Stern speaking at our upcoming event!  Dr. Stern has been involved in many space missions over the course of his career, the most recent of which is the New Horizons mission that flew past Pluto in July 2015 for which he is the Principal Investigator. Dr. Stern's research has focused on studies of our Solar System's Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud, the satellites of the outer planets, comets, Pluto, and the search for planets around other stars. He has also worked on the theory of spacecraft rendevous, mesospheric clouds on the terrestrial planets, galactic astrophysics, and studies of tenuous satellite atmospheres, including the atmosphere of the Moon. Throughout his career, Dr. Stern has helped to develop several scientific instruments for space-based satellite missions, particularly those that observe ultraviolet light. These instruments include those onboard the ESA/NASA Rosetta mission to comet 67P/C-G and the Mars Express satellite as well as the SWUIS ultraviolet imager, which has flown two Shuttle missions and was used to observe comet Hale-Bopp, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and a search for Vulcanoids (asteroids between the Sun and Mercury). Dr. Stern served as NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, a position that essentially made him NASA's top-ranking official for science, from 2007-2008, during which time a record 10 major new flight projects were started. In 2007, Stern was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.