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Meet Pamela Clark |
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Pamela Clark grew up in New England and, inspired by President John Kennedy, decided she wanted to explore outer space by the time she was thirteen years old. She thought, “If they can put a man on the moon, they can put a woman (me) on Mars!” She obtained her BA from St. Joseph College, a tiny Catholic women’s college in Connecticut. While obtaining her PhD in planetary geochemistry from the University of Maryland, she worked at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center and the Astrogeology Branch of the USGS (United States Geological Survey) in Flagstaff, Arizona, simulating, analyzing, correlating, and interpreting lunar X-ray spectra. She was a member of the group, led by Isidore Adler and Jack Trombka, that pioneered the use of orbital x-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers to determine the composition of planetary surfaces. She participated in the Flagstaff Lunar Data Consortium, the first attempt to create a common format database for all remote sensing data for a planetary body. After completing her PhD, she joined the technical staff at NASA/JPL, working with the Goldstone Solar System Radar group, and expanding her remote sensing background to include radar and thermal and near infrared studies of planetary surfaces, with particular emphasis on the study of the physical nature of Mercury’s surface. Dr. Clark helped to organize a consortium of scientists interested in Mercury and currently edits the Mercury Messenger newsletter. She eventually returned Goddard to work with the X-ray and Gamma-ray Spectrometer team on the NEAR mission to asteroid Eros. Currently, as a member of the sciences and exploration division at GSFC, Dr. Clark is the science lead in a group initiated by Dr. Steve Curtis (Chief, Laboratory of Magnetospheric Physics) to develop new paradigms for the design of space missions and vehicles. She continues to study the Moon, asteroids, and Mercury (Springer Verlag is about to publish her book on Mercury entitled Violent Planet: Mercury in the Context of its Environment). Dr. Clark has done several stints in academic institutions, including Murray State University in Kentucky; Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania; and Catholic University in Washington DC. She has developed courses in analytical and environmental chemistry, geochemistry, physical geology, mineralogy, optics, planetary astronomy, remote sensing, and physics. One of her major goals in life is to explore under every rock, remote or nearby.
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