Linda Spilker

Linda Spilker is an American planetary scientist who served as the project scientist for the Cassini mission exploring the planet Saturn.[2][3][4][5][6] Her research interests include the evolution and dynamics of Saturn's rings.[7]

Linda Spilker
Born
Linda Joyce Bies[1]

1955 (age 67–68)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPlanetary Science
InstitutionsJet Propulsion Laboratory
ThesisWave structure in planetary rings (1992)
Doctoral advisorChristopher T. Russell

Career

Spilker received a B.A.in Physics from California State University, Fullerton in 1977 and an M.S. in Physics from California State University, Los Angeles in 1983. She obtained a Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA in 1992. She joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1977, initially working on the Voyager missions that were launched the same year.[8] She became a Cassini mission scientist in 1990.[2] In 1997, she was the editor of a NASA publication that summarizes the mission's legacy.[9] In 2010 she became the Cassini mission project scientist, a role in which she directed the entire team's scientific investigations.[3][4][5][6][8] She has appeared as herself in multiple television documentary programs, including several in the PBS Nova series.[1]

Honors and awards
  • NASA Exceptional Service Medal (2013)[10][2]
  • NASA Group Achievement Award (2011, 2009, 2000, 1998, 1982–1989)[2]
  • NASA Scientific Achievement Award (1982)[2]

See also

References
  1. "Linda Spilker". IMDb.
  2. "Linda Spilker". science.jpl.nasa.gov.
  3. "NASA's Cassini Begins Its Final Mission Before Self-Destruction". NPR.org. April 5, 2017.
  4. "NASA's Cassini Mission Conducts Daring Dive through Saturn's Rings". Scientific American. April 26, 2017.
  5. "Saturn ruled this scientist's life for 40 years — here's why she needs NASA to go back after Cassini's death". Business Insider. September 17, 2017.
  6. Kaplan, Sarah (September 14, 2017). "Cassini was the mission of a lifetime for this NASA scientist. Now she must say goodbye". Washington Post.
  7. Meltzer, Michael (2015). The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn: An Historic Mission to the Ringed Planet. Springer. p. 287. ISBN 978-3-319-07607-2.
  8. "Linda Spilker, planetary scientist". scicom.ucsc.edu.
  9. Spilker, Linda, ed. (1997). Passage to a ringed world : the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan (PDF). National Aeronautics and Space Administration SP-533.
  10. "NASA Agency Honor Awards" (PDF). 2013. p. 25.
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