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- Comet Team Bios
-
- Comet Impact '94
- Fact Sheet
-
-
- Dr. Eugene Shoemaker
-
- Dr. Eugene Shoemaker is a scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey
- (U.S.G.S.), Flagstaff, Ariz., and a staff member at the Lowell Observatory in
- Flagstaff.
-
- Dr. Shoemaker is a member of the three-person team (along with his wife Carolyn
- and amateur comet hunter David Levy) that discovered the comet that will impact
- Jupiter, as part of a monthly asteroid and comet survey at the Mt. Palomar
- Observatory. He also is the science team leader for the Clementine Deep Space
- Program Science Experiment that recently mapped the Moon.
-
- Dr. Shoemaker is an expert in the mechanics of meteorite impacts and other
- large-body impact processes, and he was heavily involved in planning and
- conducting the lunar science accomplished during the Ranger, Surveyor and
- Apollo programs. He has been a geologist with the U.S.G.S. since 1948, but also
- has been associated with the California Institute of Technology and NASA. Dr.
- Shoemaker is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received
- numerous awards during his career, including the NASA Medal for Scientific
- Achievement and the National Medal of Science.
-
- Dr. Heidi B. Hammel
-
- Dr. Heidi B. Hammel is a Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts
- Institute of Technology Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary
- Sciences, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her undergraduate degree
- from the same department, and got her Ph. D. in Physics and Astronomy ~m the
- University of Hawaii in Manoa Dr. Hammel works primarily in the field of outer
- planets and their satellites, with a focus on observational techniques. She is
- an acknowledged expert about the planet Neptune, and was a member of the
- Imaging Science Team for the Voyager 2 encounter with that planet. For the
- upcoming impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter, Dr. Hammel is leading
- the Hubble Space Telescope team that will investigate Jupiter's atmospheric
- response to the collisions. She is also a member of the team using NASA's
- Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and is part of an effort to
- obtain complete coverage of the impact event using small portable CCD systems
- deployed around the world.
-
- Dr. Lucy McFadden
-
- Dr. Lucy McFadden is currently a National Science Foundation, Visiting
- Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. She is visiting
- from the California Space Institute, University of California, San Diego. She
- received her undergraduate degree from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, MS from
- the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of
- Technology, and a PhD in Geology & Geophysics from University of Hawaii. Dr.
- McFadden has investigated the surface composition of small bodies in the solar
- system and studies the compositional relationship between asteroids and comet
- nuclei. She has served on the National Research Council's Committees on Data
- Management and Computation (CODMAC), and Planetary and Lunar Exploration
- (COMPLEX), NASA's Small Bodies Science Working Group, and currently serves on
- the editorial board of ICARUS, the International Journal of Solar System
- Research. Dr. McFadden has co-authored over 30 research papers in refereed
- publications. She is currently Co-coordinator of the World-wide effort to
- observe Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision with Jupiter which operates out of
- the University of Maryland's Department of Astronomy.
-
- Dr. Melissa McGrath
-
- Dr. Melissa McGrath is currently an Assistant Astronomer at the Space Telescope
- Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her BA in Physics &
- Astronomy from Mt. Holyoke College in 1977, her MA in Astronomy from the
- University of Virginia in 1984, and her PhD in Astronomy from the University of
- Virginia in 1987. Her research is focused primarily on imaging and
- spectroscopic studies of the upper atmospheres of the outer planets Jupiter,
- Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the Io and Titan atmospheres, and the Io plasma
- torus. She is the principal investigator on numerous space-based observing
- programs with the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Ultraviolet
- Explorer satellite as well as several ground-based observing programs.
-
- Hal Weaver
-
- Hal Weaver is an Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in
- Baltimore, MD. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from The Johns Hopkins
- University in 1982. He was a Resident Research Associate of the National
- Research Council working at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from
- 1982-1984. From 1984-1986 he served as an Assistant Project Scientist on the
- Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) program, which is a shuttle-based astronomy
- mission. In July 1986 he joined the Space Telescope Science Institute, where he
- remains today.
-
- Weaver's principal area of expertise is cometary science, which he has been
- pursuing since 1979. His thesis work involved analysis of cometary spectra
- obtained with the International Ultraviolet Observer (IUE) satellite. In
- 1985-1986 he performed infrared observations of comet Halley from the Kuiper
- Airborne Observatory (KAO), which resulted in the first direct detection of
- water in comets. For this latter work, he was awarded the NASA Medal for
- Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1988. Lately his research has centered on
- HST observations of comets, and he is the Principal Investigator on the HST
- program to study comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, which will plunge into Jupiter's
- atmosphere in July 1994.
-