NASA Taps Planetary Geologist Ellen Stofan as Next Chief Scientist

Planetary geologist Ellen Stofan has been tapped to be NASA's next chief scientist.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made the announcement Monday; Stofan's new role will become effective Aug. 25.

Stofan will be Bolden's principal advisor on the agency's science programs and science-related strategic planning and investments, according to a NASA release.

The Chief Scientist is the most senior science position at NASA. The position was discontinued in September 2005 and later reinstated in 2011. Dr. Waleed Abdalati is the outgoing chief scientist, who left NASA to be director at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado.

Stofan is a geologist who has spent decades researching Earth, Mars and Venus and Saturn's moon Titan. She is a vested member of several space research teams, including the Cassini Mission to Saturn Radar Team and the Mars Express Mission's MARSIS sounder. She was also the principle investigator in a proposed mission to send a floating sea lander to Titan.

"Ellen brings an extraordinary range of scientific research knowledge and planetary exploration experience to the chief scientist position," Bolden said in a statement. "Her breadth of experience and familiarity with the agency will allow her to hit the ground running. We're fortunate to have her on our team."

Stofan has worked for NASA before. From 1991 through 2000, she held a number of senior scientist roles at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including chief scientist for NASA's New Millennium Program, deputy project scientist for the Magellan Mission to Venus, and experiment scientist for SIR-C, an instrument that provided radar images of Earth on shuttle flights in 1994..

She is a highly decorated and accomplished scientist. Among her awards is the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She has also authored and published numerous papers and books and chaired national scientific committees.

Stofan is currently vice president of Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Md., and honorary professor in the department of Earth sciences at University College London in England. She holds master and doctorate degrees in geological sciences from Brown University and a bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.