Ellen Stofan Selected As New Director Of National Air & Space Museum

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Ellen Stofan has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Stofan begins her tenure April 30. She brings more than 25 years’ experience in space-related organizations and a deep research background in planetary geology. She is the first woman to hold this position.

Stofan was chief scientist at NASA (2013-2016), serving as the principal advisor to former Administrator Charles Bolden on NASA’s strategic planning and programs. She helped guide the development of a long-range plan to get humans to Mars, and worked on strategies for NASA to support commercial activity in low Earth orbit. She supported NASA’s overall science programs in heliophysics, Earth science, planetary science and astrophysics. While at NASA, she worked with President Barack Obama’s science advisor and the National Science and Technology Council on science policy.

Stofan grew up outside of Cleveland and her father was, literally, a rocket scientist for NASA, and her mother was an elementary-school science teacher and school administrator. She attended her first rocket launch at Cape Canaveral at 4, and by age 11, was tagging along on her mother’s geology-class field trips, peppering the instructor with questions about rocks.

She went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in geology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and her master’s and doctoral degrees at Brown University, both in geological sciences. While finishing her doctoral degree, Stofan joined the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) as a post-doctoral fellow and became the deputy project scientist for the Magellan Mission to Venus.

In 1994, Stofan became JPL’s chief scientist for the New Millennium Program where she managed a team of 100 scientists working on new technologies. The following year, Stofan moved to London while continuing to work at JPL and was, and continues to be, an honorary professor at University College London, where she conducted her own research and advised doctoral students. She returned to the U.S. in 2000.

Stofan succeeds Gen. J.R. “Jack” Dailey who retired in January after serving 18 years as director.

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