Jeffrey Booth
Deputy Director for Astronomy and Physics at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Education
- BA, Physics, JHU, 1996
- MS, Physics, University of California at Irvine, 2000
Career highlights
- Oversees implementation of missions, ranging from CubeSats (very small satellites) studying the sun to partnerships with international space agencies to flagship telescopes searching for signs of biosignatures in exoplanets.
- Has overseen the formulation of space missions for NASA through initial design and development at JPL.
- Worked on the Euclid mission, which revealed full-color images of the cosmos.
- Awarded the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal in 2021 for leading HabEx and six other mission concept studies for the Astro2020 decadal survey, significantly influencing NASA’s future science missions.
- Was awarded over $500M in NASA development funds for astrophysics and heliophysics new space missions.
- Involved in SPHEREx, a two-year mission that recently began surveying the sky in optical as well as near-infrared light, and SunRISE, which will observe low radio frequency emissions so scientists can understand better how the sun is able to generate intense space weather storms.
Quoted
“When JPL decided to fly a helicopter on Mars, everybody said that’s a bad idea because there isn’t enough atmosphere or money to fund it. But we had a culture and a desire to change the way we explored the planet. We pushed through those barriers, accepted there were constraints and tried to come up with an innovative approach. We’re already planning the next large space missions that will utilise this as a fundamental way to explore Mars.”
—News, University of Portsmouth, April 2022
“[W]e’re asking questions that are big questions, they’re universal questions, and we want to be able to capitalize on the expertise across the globe.”
—Video, UK Space Agency, 2024
