Ellen Renee Stofan is the Chief Scientist of National Aeronautics and Space Administration and serves as principal advisor to National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator Charles Bolden on the agency’s science programs, planning and investments.
Background
Ellen Stofan is the daughter of Andrew Stofan, a rocket engineer who worked for National Aeronautics and Space Administration in a number of roles including director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lewis Research Center and associate administrator for National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Space Station Office.
Education
Ellen Stofan received her Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the College of William & Mary in 1983 and went on to earn masters and doctorate degrees from Brown University.
Career
Previously, she served as vice president of Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Maryland, and as an honorary professor in the Earth sciences department at the University College London. Stofan’s research has focused on the geology of Venus, Mars, Saturn"s moon Titan, and Earth. She was also the principal investigator on the Titan Mare Explorer, a proposed mission for a floating lander to be sent to Titan.
From 1991 through 2000, she held a number of senior scientist positions at National Aeronautics and Space Administration"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, including chief scientist for National Aeronautics and Space Administration"s New Millennium Program, deputy project scientist for the Magellan Mission to Venus, and experiment scientist for Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C), an instrument that provided radar images of Earth on two Space Shuttle flights in 1994.
Stofan has written and published numerous professional papers, books and book chapters, and has chaired committees including the National Research Council Inner Planets Panel for the recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey and the Venus Exploration Analysis Group.
Membership
She is an associate member of the Cassini Mission to Saturn Radar Team and a co-investigator on the Mars Express Mission"s MARSIS sounder.