Sean C. Solomon
Principal Investigator

Sean Solomon, the Director of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory since July 2012, has been on the science teams for the Magellan, Mars Global Surveyor, and GRAIL missions. He served as Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington for 19 years. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a past president of the American Geophysical Union. As the MESSENGER Principal Investigator, he has overall responsibility for all aspects of the mission.

H. L. Winters
Project Manager

H. Winters oversees MESSENGER's overall operation, reporting directly to the Principal Investigator and the NASA Discovery Program Office on MESSENGER's technical, schedule, and programmatic status. She previously served as Deputy Project Manager for the MESSENGER mission and as Manager for NASA's Mini-RF project. Her involvement in the mission dates back to 2004, when she served as the Science Operations Center lead. She has also led efforts on the TIMED mission, for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and various national security projects.

Larry R. Nittler
Deputy Principal Investigator

Larry Nittler, a cosmochemist in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, has led investigations of samples returned by NASA's Stardust and Genesis missions. His analysis of measurements from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission helped provide the first chemical analyses of a minor planet. In addition to remote-sensing geochemical measurements, his research focuses on the laboratory study of extraterrestrial materials, including meteorites and interplanetary dust particles, to understand the formation of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. As the MESSENGER Deputy Principal Investigator, he supports and acts on behalf of the Principal Investigator.

K. A. Cooper
Deputy Project Manager

K. Cooper has been at JHU/APL since 1994. As the Deputy Project Manager for MESSENGER, she supports and acts on behalf of the Project Manager. Since 2006, she has worked on the Van Allen Probes Mission in the role of Deputy Project Manager for Instruments and most recently as the Project Manager reporting directly to the NASA/GSFC Program Office. She previously served as the Instrument Manager for the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager and the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation instruments on the New Horizons mission. She was Project Manager on several other NASA-sponsored development efforts and a national security project.

D. G. Grant
Senior Management Advisor

D. Grant served as Project Manager for MESSENGER for nearly five years. During that time, he oversaw the development, integration, test, and launch of the spacecraft and subsequent mission operations, including the Earth flyby and two Venus flybys. In his current role he provides management support for the MESSENGER project and Project Manager. He currently serves as Project Manager for the Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics, and Dynamics mission and has managed several other satellite projects for JHU/APL, including the Polar Bear upper-atmosphere research mission.

P. D. Bedini
Senior Management Advisor

P. Bedini was MESSENGER's Project Manager for more than five years, during which the spacecraft completed three Mercury flybys, entered orbit about Mercury, successfully completed its Primary Mission, and completed the majority of its First Extended Mission. In his present role he continues to offer management support for the project. He previously served as Deputy Project Manager for Integration and Test for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and as Project Manager for the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Prior to joining JHU/APL in 2000, he spent nearly 20 years developing, testing, and operating space-flight instruments on a number of NASA and ESA missions.

R. L. McNutt, Jr.
Project Scientist

R. McNutt, at JHU/APL since 1992, has been involved in a broad range of space physics research. He is a pioneer in solar neutrino research. On MESSENGER, he serves as the Principal Investigator's "right hand man" in assuring that the spacecraft, mission design, and experiment plan answer all six of the major science questions being investigated by the project.

L. M. Prockter
Deputy Project Scientist

L. Prockter has been at JHU/APL since 1999 and is the group supervisor of the Space Department’s Planetary Exploration Group. As MESSENGER Deputy Project Scientist, she supports the Project Scientist in assuring that the mission implementation will meet or exceed the science requirements of the mission. She is also a MESSENGER co-investigator and previously served as Instrument Scientist for the mission’s Mercury Dual Imaging System. Her extensive experience includes work on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous and Galileo missions.

B. J. Anderson
Deputy Project Scientist

B. Anderson has been at JHU/APL since 1988, and specializes in the study of the dynamics of space plasmas and planetary magnetic fields. His primary role as MESSENGER Deputy Project Scientist is to oversee the orbital operations planning to ensure that observations from all of the instruments are coordinated to meet the mission objectives. He is also a MESSENGER co-investigator, and previously served as Instrument Scientist for the mission’s Magnetometer investigation. His experience includes work on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission (also as magnetometer Instrument Scientist) and as Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation's Standalone Wireless Magnetometer System.

D. J. O'Shaughnessy
Mission Systems Engineer

D. O'Shaughnessy is responsible for all technical aspects of the MESSENGER mission to Mercury. He has been involved with MESSENGER since joining JHU/APL in 2000, previously leading the guidance and control team. He has also supported NEAR, STEREO, and New Horizons; and he has worked on numerous research and development projects in control systems, algorithm and software development, and autonomous on-orbit commissioning and calibration. He is also currently acting as the JHU/APL lead on the NASA Engineering and Safety Center-sponsored Autonomous Aerobraking Development Project.

A. B. Calloway
Mission Operations Manager

A. Calloway has over 14 years experience in space mission operations and ground system development efforts. He began his career supporting multiple commercial and international geosynchronous communications satellite launches and operations. He then spent six years supporting the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, a low-Earth orbiting Earth resources satellite, at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he spent the last four years as the technical operations lead. He has been a member of the MESSENGER operations team since he joined JHU/APL in 2002.

R. E. Gold
Science Payload Manager

R. Gold has been at JHU/APL since 1975 and is currently the Assistant Branch Supervisor for Space Engineering and Technology. He has been involved in a wide variety of space physics and technology projects and was responsible for development of the instrument payload on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission. On MESSENGER he leads the engineering implementation of the science instrumentation to optimize its reliability and performance within mass, power, and cost constraints.

S. E. Jaskulek
Payload System Engineer

S. Jaskulek, at JHU/APL since 1981, heads the Enabling Technologies Section of the Lab's Space Instrumentation Group and is a leader for application specific integrated circuit development. He has extensive experience in the design, fabrication, testing, and integration of space instrumentation. On MESSENGER, he is responsible for coordinating the technical and interface issues between the spacecraft and payload teams.

J. V. McAdams
Mission Design Lead Engineer

J. McAdams, at JHU/APL since 1994, has participated in NASA solar system exploration missions since the early 1980s. His work throughout all phases of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous and MESSENGER missions has helped JHU/APL to become a leader in the planning and implementation of planetary exploration missions. On MESSENGER, he designs the trajectory and propulsive maneuvers that enable fulfillment of science objectives with minimum risk to spacecraft safety.

N. Laslo
Payload Operations Manager

N. Laslo, at JHU/APL since 2006, is responsible for coordinating the daily operations of the MESSENGER instrument payload, including instrument science planning and control, as well as post-event assessment activities performed by the payload operations team. She is also the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) Mission Operations Lead and instrument sequencer, and she has participated in instrument sequencing for the Mini-RF instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Prior to joining the JHU/APL Space Department, she worked on the Science Mission Planning Team for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

S. L. Ensor
Science Operations Center Lead

S. Ensor, at JHU/APL since 1981, has participated in a variety of programs, including the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope; Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous; Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics; and Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory. On these projects, she has held many roles, including instrument and spacecraft flight software developer, instrument software lead, flight software lead, independent test lead, mission system software engineer, and Science Operations Center (SOC) lead. On MESSENGER, she was the instrument software lead for the development of the instrument flight and testbed software and now serves as the SOC lead.

Julie Edmonds
Education/Public Outreach Project Manager and Team Lead

Julie Edmonds is Co-Director of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE), which conducts professional development institutes for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 teachers and science programs for middle and high school students. Over the past 10 years she has designed many educational materials for NASA programs, including MESSENGER, that have been distributed nationally and are in widespread use by educators and students. She oversees the MESSENGER Education and Public Outreach program, including teacher training, curriculum design, and the dissemination of educational materials through both digital and conventional media.