Bruce Hapke

Bruce Hapke is a noted American planetary scientist. An expert in bidirectional reflectance spectroscopy, Hapke has been described as the father of planetary remote sensing.

Career

Hapke earned his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1953 in physics. He was awarded his Ph. D. in engineering physics from Cornell University in 1962. Hapke was a Research Associate at the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University from 1960-1967. In 1967, he became a professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. In the course of his long and distinguished career, Hapke was a member of the Mariner 10 and Viking Imaging Science Teams and a principal investigator for the study of Apollo lunar samples. He is a past Chairman of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. Dr. Hapke is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

Awards and honors

• The mineral Hapkeite, a recently discovered lunar mineral was named in his honor
• Asteroid 3549 Hapke
• Awarded the Kuiper Prize in 2001, the most distinguished award given by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences
• Fellow of the American Geophysical Union