Charles F. Kennel

Charles F. Kennel was educated at Harvard and Princeton in space plasma physics and astrophysics. After three years at the Avco-Everett Research Laboratory, he joined the UCLA Physics Department, eventually chairing the department, and TRW Systems. From 1994 to 1996, he was Associate Administrator at NASA for Mission to Planet Earth. He was the UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor, its chief academic officer, from 1996 to1998, ninth Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Vice Chancellor of Marine Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, from 1997 to 2006, and is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He will be a distinguished visiting scholar at Christ’s College, Cambridge, during Lent term 2010.

Kennel is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. He has chaired the National Academy’s Solar and Space Physics, Global Change Research, Fusion Sciences, and Beyond Einstein Committees, as well as its Board on Physics and Astronomy. He was a member of the Pew Oceans Commission from 2000 to 2003, the NASA Advisory Council from 1998 to 2006, and its chair from 2001 to 2005. He was the 2007 C. P. Snow Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. He presently chairs the California Council on Science and Technology and the NRC Space Studies Board, and is a member of the Board of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Charles Kennel has received the James Clerk Maxwell (American Physical Society), Hannes Alfven (European Geophysical Union), and Aurelio Peccei (Italian Academy) Prizes, both the NASA Distinguished Service and Distinguished Public Service Medals, and an honorary degree from the University of Alabama Huntsville.