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Sean C. Solomon

Sean C. Solomon is Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.  Educated at the California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1966) and MIT (Ph.D., 1971), he was a member of the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (and one of its earlier components) at MIT for more than 20 years.

A seismologist, marine geophysicist, and planetary scientist, Solomon has worked on a wide range of problems in earthquake seismology, geodynamics, magmatism, and the geological and geophysical evolution of the terrestrial planets.  He served on science teams for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s Magellan mission to Venus and Mars Global Surveyor mission, and he is currently the Principal Investigator for the Carnegie Institution team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute and for NASA’s MESSENGER mission now en route to orbit the planet Mercury.

Solomon is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past President of the American Geophysical Union.  A former Sloan Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, he received the Arthur L. Day Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, the G. K. Gilbert Award from the Geological Society of America, the Harry H. Hess Medal from the American Geophysical Union, the Public Service Medal from NASA, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Caltech.