Speakers

Charles Elachi was the director of the Jet Propulsion Lab from 2001 to 2016. During his 46-year career at JPL, Dr. Elachi was a leader in developing the field of spaceborne imaging radar. The principal investigator on numerous research and development studies and flight projects sponsored by NASA, he is currently the team leader of the Cassini Titan Radar experiment and a co-investigator on the Rosetta Comet Nucleus Sounder Experiment, and a member of the science team on NASA’s mission to Europa, and the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission (NISAR) . Elachi is the author of over 230 publications and the holder of several patents. The recipient of numerous honors, he was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2006. He also has an asteroid named after him in recognition of his contributions to planetary exploration.
During his 15 years as the Director of JPL, NASA completed several successful deep space missions including landing 3 rovers on Mars (Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity); and two missions that returned extraterrestrial samples to Earth containing solar wind molecules and comet particles that are over 4.5 billion years old.