Charles Kennel


Charles F. Kennel is an American plasma physicist and former Associate Administrator of NASA. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and won the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics in 1997. In 2009, he was advertised by NASA Watch as a potential pick by Barack Obama as the next NASA Administrator.

Early life and career

Kennel received a bachelor's degree in astronomy from Harvard College and a doctorate in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University. His doctoral thesis was advised by Edward A. Frieman.
Charles Kennel was a former Associate Administrator of NASA. He was the director of Mission to Planet Earth, a program during the Clinton Administration to perform a comprehensive survey and observation of our home planet. He was a member and chair of the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee which he quit in 2006.
Kennel was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1991. In 1997, he received the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics from the American Physical Society.

Works