Dr. Michael King, Senior Project Scientist for NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS), Greenbelt, Md., has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), for advancing our understanding of the effects of aerosols and clouds on Earthís radiation and for leading programs to improve climate prediction.
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made “important contributions to engineering theory and practice, including significant contributions to the literature of engineering theory and practice,” and those who have demonstrated “unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology.” The total U.S. membership is 2,138 and the number of foreign associates is 165. King is one of only 16 active and retired NASA employees that are members of the National Academy of Engineering.
Dr. King has been the Senior Project Scientist for the EOS since 1992. In this position, he has orchestrated the day-to-day interfacing of the Earth Science community with NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise to ensure that both scientific and programmatic requirements for the program are met. He is honored for his leadership and his scientific contribution in the field of radiative transfer and its application to ground-based, airborne and satellite remote sensing techniques of clouds and aerosols.
He also serves as the Principal Investigator and Team Leader of the Atmosphere Discipline Group of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) science team and is a member of the science team of the Clouds and the Earthís Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument. MODIS and CERES are both key instruments on the EOS Terra and Aqua satellites.
Dr. King has also led and participated in many field projects including the SAFARI-2000 field campaign in southern Africa. He also excels in theoretical studies, in instrument development, in analysis of satellite and aircraft data, and writing review papers.
His research experience includes conceiving, developing, and operating multispectral scanning radiometers from a number of aircraft platforms in field experiments ranging form arctic stratus clouds to smoke from the Kuwait oil fires and biomass burning in Brazil and southern Africa. He has lectured on global change on all seven continents.
Dr. King is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), and is a recipient of the Verner E. Suomi Award of the AMS for fundamental contributions to remote sensing and radiative transfer. He received an honorary doctorate from Colorado College in 1995, and is a Goddard Senior Fellow and recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and NASA Exceptional Service Medal. King also received the 2001 William Nordberg Memorial Award for his accomplishments in the field of Earth Sciences.
Dr. King is an Adjunct Professor of Meteorology at the University of Maryland. He received a BA degree in physics from Colorado College in 1971 and the MS and PhD degrees in atmospheric sciences from the University of Arizona in 1973 and 1977, respectively, and joined Goddard Space Flight Center as a Physical Scientist in the Climate and Radiation Branch, Laboratory for Atmospheres, in January 1978.
Dr. King currently resides in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife, Diana, a Systems Analyst for the Department of Health and Human Services, in Washington, D.C. His son, Jason, is a financial advisor for H & R Block Financial Advisors, Inc., in Richmond, Va. His daughter, Hailey, is a Production Manager for Knott Laboratory, Inc. in Centennial, Colo.
