Former NASA Chief Scientist To Be New NSF Director
President Obama nominated France Cordova to be the next Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) today. Cordova was NASA’s Chief Scientist from 1993-1996.
Cordova, an astrophysicist, has an impressive resume both as a researcher and an administrator. Since her tenure at NASA, she has been President of Purdue University (2007-2012), Chancellor of UC-Riverside and Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy (2002-2007), and Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Physics at UC-Santa Barbara (1996-2002). Prior to NASA, she was Head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University and worked previously at Los Alamos National Lab. She is chair of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and has been a member of the National Science Board, which governs NSF, since 2008. Her B.A. in English is from Stanford and her Ph.D. in physics is from CalTech.
As a side note, Cordova’s successor as President of Purdue is former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who is co-chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Human Spaceflight.
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