NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has named planetary geologist Ellen Stofan the agency’s chief scientist, effective Aug. 25.
Stofan will be Bolden’s principal advisor on the agency’s science programs and science-related strategic planning and investments.
Prior to her appointment, Stofan was vice president of Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Md., and honorary professor in the department of Earth sciences at University College London in England.
The appointment marks Stofan’s return to NASA. From 1991 through 2000, she held a number of senior scientist positions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., 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 two shuttle flights in 1994.