Photo Courtesy of Cornell News Service

Dr. Steven Squyres, 47, is married and has two children. He splits his time between NASA in California and teaching astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He first realized he wanted to devote his life to space exploration when he was a geology student at Cornell.

Dr. Squyres's research focuses on the large solid bodies of the solar system: the terrestrial planets and the satellites of the Jovian planets. His work involves analysis of data from both spacecraft and ground-based telescopes, as well as a variety of types of geophysical modeling.

Areas of particular interest include the tectonics of Venus, the history of water on Mars, and the geophysics of the icy satellites of the outer planets. Data analysis and theory are used together to examine the processes that have shaped the surfaces and interiors of these bodies. 

Dr. Squyres has participated in a number of planetary space flight missions. From 1978 to 1981 he was an associate of the Voyager imaging science team, participating in analysis of imaging data from the encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. He was a radar investigator on the Magellan mission to Venus, a member of the Mars Observer gamma-ray spectrometer flight investigation team, and a co-investigator on the Russian Mars `96 mission.

Dr. Squyres is currently the scientific Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover Project. He is also a co-investigator on the Mars Express mission, and on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. He is a member of the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Flight Investigation Team for the Mars Odyssey mission and a member of the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn.