Maria T. Zuber (born June 27, 1958) is an American geophysicist who is the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a current trustee of Brown University.[1] Zuber has been involved in more than half a dozen NASA planetary missions aimed at mapping the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and several asteroids. She was the principal investigator for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission, which was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.[2]
Maria T. Zuber was born on June 27, 1958, in Norristown, Pennsylvania.[4] She grew up in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania's Coal Region, one of five children of Joseph and Dolores (Stoffa) Zuber. She has three brothers, Joseph Jr., Stephen, and Andrew (1966–2018), and a sister, Joanne.[5] Both her grandfathers were coal miners and contracted black lung disease.[6]
Zuber earned Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees, both in geophysics, from Brown University in 1983 and 1986 respectively.[7] Reflecting on her decision to apply to Ivy League graduate schools and not MIT, Zuber joked "I remember saying, I don't want to go to any nerd school... and of course, I'm the biggest nerd there is."[4]
Zuber later worked at Johns Hopkins University and was a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. She joined the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1995 and was the head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2012.[8] She was the first woman to lead a science department at MIT.[2] From 2012, she was vice president for research at MIT,[9] where she also held the position of the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.[8]
Zuber's professional focus has been on the structure and tectonics of solid solar system objects. She is a pioneer in the measurement of the shapes of the surfaces of the inner planets, and in interpreting what those shapes mean for internal structure and dynamics, thermal history, and surface-atmosphere interactions. She specializes in using gravity and laser altimetry measurements to determine interior structure and evolution. The topographic maps of Mars and the Moon produced by her laser altimeters on the Mars Global Surveyor and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft are more accurate than that of Earth. She has been a team member on 10 NASA planetary missions, including Mars Global Surveyor, Dawn, and MESSENGER.[8][10]
Jim Adams, NASA Deputy Director of Planetary Division, left, and Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talk during the countdown to launch of the twin GRAIL spacecraft on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Zuber became interested in planetary science at an early age. A desire to spread her childhood enthusiasm was one reason why she teamed up with former astronaut Sally Ride to include in the GRAIL mission components that would capture the imagination of young students. A student contest provided the names for the mission's two spacecraft, Ebb and Flow, and students can sign up to use GRAIL's Moon Knowledge Acquired (MoonKAM) by Middle school students.[2][11]
2008: Named as one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report,[16] with Fiona A. Harrison. Zuber and Harrison were the first two women to be selected as scientific leaders of NASA robotic missions.
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