Dr. Mark Clampin
Acting SMD Deputy Associate Administrator
NASA
Dr. Mark Clampin is the Acting Deputy Associate Administrator in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, where he provides executive leadership, overall planning, direction, and management of NASA’s $7B science portfolio focused on the scientific exploration of Earth, the Sun, solar system, universe, and biological and physical sciences. He brings ~35 years of leadership in program, project management, and strategic planning, and the development of space-flight hardware for astrophysics research. He fosters partnerships with other government agencies and collaborates with commercial and international partners to leverage synergistic investments and advance NASA science.
Until August 2022, Dr. Clampin was the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), where he led the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics and Earth Science Divisions, together with the high-performance computing office. He previously served as GSFC’s Director of the Astrophysics Science Division and GSFC’s Deputy Director of SED. For ~14 years he was the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Observatory Project Scientist responsible for the development and oversight of Webb’s Observatory Science Requirements.
Prior to joining GSFC, Dr Clampin was the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Group Lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), where he worked on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Servicing Missions SM1 to SM3B. Dr. Clampin is a Co-Investigator with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the Advanced camera for Surveys (ACS) science team and where he was responsible for the delivery of ACS’s three focal plane camera systems. His research interests focus on studying the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Dr. Clampin has also designed ground-based telescope instruments including adaptive optics systems, coronagraphs and detectors.
Dr. Clampin graduated from the University of London with a BS in Physics and from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, with PhD in Astronomy. Dr. Clampin is the recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal for his work on the Webb Telescope, NASA’s Scientific Achievement Medal and the AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize. He is a Fellow of SPIE and the Royal Astronomical Society. Dr. Clampin was the founding Editor of SPIE’s peer-reviewed Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems (JATIS), and served as Chief Editor for 7 years.
Related Sessions
Space Science Track
Monday, April 7, 2025
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Track: Track Program