Steven W. Squyres, Ph.D. '81, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, has been named chairman of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC), an assembly of experts that offers guidance and policy advice to the administrator of America's space agency.

Squyres previously served on the council in the 1990s, and he also served as chairman of the former NASA Space Science Advisory. He succeeds Kenneth Ford, who has served as council chairman since October 2008.

Squyres, the scientific principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, focuses his research on the robotic exploration of planetary surfaces, the history of water on Mars, geophysics and tectonics of icy satellites, tectonics of Venus, and planetary gamma-ray and X-ray spectroscopy. His best-known work includes the study of the history and distribution of water on Mars and of the possible existence and habitability of a liquid water ocean on Europa, a moon of Jupiter.

Squyres has participated in a number of NASA planetary missions including Voyager, Magellan and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. He also is a co-investigator on the Mars Express mission and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and is a member of the Mars Odyssey mission and the Cassini mission to Saturn.

In October, Squyres was an aquanaut on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) team for an undersea expedition that simulated a future human mission to an asteroid. He was one of six researchers that lived and worked underwater in Aquarius, a school bus-sized laboratory sitting on the seabed near Key Largo, Fla., at a depth of 60 feet. NASA's goal is to send a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The NEEMO expedition was originally planned for a 13-day duration but ended early due to Hurricane Rina.

Information on the NASA Advisory Council: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/nac/home/index.html