Jill Perry

Caltech president David Baltimore announced at a January 31 press conference that Charles Elachi, PhD ’71, has been named the new director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, effective May 1. Caltech manages JPL for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Elachi has served in a variety of JPL research and management positions since 1971. He has headed the Space and Earth Science Programs Directorate since 1994, and has also been manager for radar development and leader of the radar remote-sensing team.

Baltimore said he believes Elachi “knows JPL better than anyone and will best be able to lead the Laboratory in the coming years. Charles has an extraordinary record of accomplishment in his 30 years at JPL. He’s a Caltech alumnus and so knows the school well. He is an expert in remote sensing, and in recognition of his work was one of the youngest members ever elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He has long been a leader of planetary exploration at JPL and is widely respected at the Laboratory. I look forward to having a close working relationship with him.”

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin said, “Charles Elachi brings formidable talents to his new job, as both a scientist and a leader. In addition to already being responsible for many of JPL’s missions in solar system exploration, Earth sciences, and astrophysics, he has led efforts to create road maps of our exploration strategies decades into the future. He is both an effective administrator and a visionary.”

Elachi said he is honored to be entrusted with the position. “For the last 40 years JPL has enjoyed a tradition of excellence as a NASA center and division of Caltech, and I intend to continue that tradition. My commitment is to continue the tradition of excellence and boldness in exploring our solar system, understanding the origin of galaxies, and applying that knowledge to better understanding the changes on our own planet.”

The new post brings Elachi full circle, as he recalled being inspired as an 11-year-old in Lebanon by JPL’s launching of Explorer I—42 years ago to the day, he noted. “Maybe that’s a good omen for me,” he joked. Elachi went on to receive a BSc in physics from the University of Grenoble, France, and the Dipl. Ing in engineering from the Polytechnic Institute, Grenoble, both in 1968. He earned a PhD in electrical engineering from Caltech in 1971, as well as an MBA from USC in 1978 and a master’s in geology from UCLA in 1983.

He is perhaps best known for his role in the development of a series of imaging radar systems for the Space Shuttle that allowed scientists to see through clouds blanketing Earth. These systems even penetrate the top layer of soil in arid regions, revealing hints of what lies below the surface.

Elachi served as principal investigator on numerous NASA research and development studies and flight projects. He is currently the team leader of the Cassini Titan radar experiment and a coinvestigator on the Rosetta Comet Nucleus Sounder Experiment. He is the author of three textbooks on remote sensing and more than 200 publications on topics such as space and planetary exploration, wave propagation and scattering, electromagnetic theory, lasers, and integrated optics. He has taught Introduction to the Physics of Remote Sensing at Caltech since 1982.

He replaces current JPL director Edward Stone, who will return to full-time teaching and research at Caltech, where he has taught since 1967. The David Morrisroe Professor of Physics, Stone has been widely regarded as an energetic and thoughtful leader at JPL.

Named director in January 1991, Stone has led the laboratory during a decade in which it undertook the management of dozens of missions exploring the solar system, Earth sciences, and astrophysics. Highlights of that time include Galileo’s five-year orbital mission to Jupiter and the launch of Cassini to Saturn, as well as a new generation of Earth-sciences satellites such as TOPEX/Poseidon and SeaWinds, and the Mars Pathfinder landing in 1997.

Both Baltimore and Goldin praised Stone for leading JPL with great distinction during the past 10 years. “Ed is a person of high integrity, unflagging energy, and deep commitment to the Laboratory and its goals,” said Baltimore. “It has been a great pleasure for me to work with him as JPL director, and I look forward to having him back on the Caltech campus full time.”

Goldin said, “Over the past decade, Ed Stone led JPL from managing a handful of large projects to overseeing dozens of new, smaller exploration missions. A great deal of what we know about the solar system has been a result, directly or indirectly, of Ed’s work. It’s been my honor to work with Ed Stone in revolutionizing the way JPL does business, because JPL is the most important organization in the field of astrophysics and planetary science.”

(Note: A video broadcast of the press conference can be viewed on the Web at www.caltech.edu/events/elachi.html.)
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