AOGS Honorary Member

2015 AOGS Honorary Member Award Recipient
Jack Kaye

NASA Headquarters

Dr Jack Kaye is Associate Director for Research of the Earth Science Division in the NASA Science Mission Directorate. In this leadership role, Dr Kaye coordinates NASA participation in a variety of research programs. He has been a particular friend to AOGS, championing the increasing involvement of NASA at AOGS Annual Meetings in recent years.

Jack Kaye is a chemist by training. Having completed a PhD at Caltech on theoretical aspects of chemical reactions in a distinctly earth-bound setting, he shortly after moved to the Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. We might say that his feet have subsequently not touched the ground as he established himself as a space scientist. At Goddard he was responsible for conducting research about the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere, the incorporation of chemical processes into transport models and the evaluation of those models with satellite, aircraft, balloon, and ground-based data. In 1991 Jack Kaye moved from Maryland to NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. Here he joined the Earth Science Directorate and was responsible for managing the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling and Analysis Program, serving as a program scientist in various Shuttle-based and satellite-based missions. Over time his administrative and budgetary responsibilities increased as he developed NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise Research Strategy. Jack Kaye is now entering his tenth year as Associate Director for Research of the Earth Science Division. Among many duties he serves as NASA principal for the US Global Change Research Program and co-lead of the calibration/validation subgroup of the NASA-European Space Agency Joint Program Planning Group. He has a long history of involvement with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) having served as Secretary of the Atmospheric Sciences section. He has been awarded fellowships of both the American Meteorological Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

With myriad responsibilities at NASA one might ask how Jack Kaye has found time to become involved with AOGS. Many conference delegates will be familiar with the NASA Hyperwall which first featured in the 2012 AOGS meeting, providing an opportunity for delegates and visiting students alike to watch short presentations about different aspects of space-based sciences. As the driving force of NASA engagement with AOGS, Jack Kaye has contributed special lectures, encouraged the attendance of NASA scientists at AOGS and at this conference has arranged both a special session and a panel discussion on frontiers in space-based sciences. For this role as a friend and advocate of AOGS, together with his reputation and achievements as an atmospheric chemist and space scientist, AOGS Council warmly recommends Dr Jack Kaye as an Honorary Member.