James W. Head

James William Head Ⅲ (born August 4, 1941 in Richmond, Virginia ) is an American geologist and planetologist .

Head graduated from Washington & Lee University with a bachelor's degree in 1964 and a PhD in geology from Brown University in 1969 . From 1968 to 1973 he was a geologist at Bellcomm Inc. and from 1973/74 interim director of the Lunar Science Institute in Dallas. In 1973 he became an Assistant Professor, 1974 Associate Professor and 1980 Professor of Geology at Brown University. He is Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geology there.

In NASA's Apollo program in the 1960s, he dealt with possible landing sites on the moon, trained the astronauts and examined lunar rocks and lunar data. Also later he dealt with the comparative study of the geology of planets with applications to the early earth. He also undertook field studies on volcanoes in Hawaii and on Mt. St. Helens, was involved in the investigation of volcanic deposits in the deep sea and was five times in Antarctica. In addition to NASA planetary missions (Magellan to Venus, Galileo to Jupiter, Mars Surveyor, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Messenger mission to Mercury), he was also on Russian (Phobos to the Mars moon of the same name, Venera to Venus, Mars 96) and ESA missions (Mars Express) involved.

In 2015 he received the Penrose Medal and he received the GK Gilbert Award . In 1971 he received the NASA Medal. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the Geological Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union . In 1995 he received an honorary doctorate from Washington & Lee University. The Head Mountains in Antarctica have been named after him since 2007 .

Web links

• Website at Brown University
• Interview with James Head in NASA's Oral History Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004