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Faith Vilas
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Dr. Faith Vilas is an American astronomer and planetary scientist. Asteroid 3507 Vilas is named for her.
== Career ==
Vilas earned her BA in Astronomy at Wellesley College and her MS in Astronomy at MIT. She completed her Doctoral degree at the University of Arizona investigating the nature and origin of outer solar system asteroids based on reflectance spectrophotometry.
Vilas was a scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center from 1985 through 2005 where she worked on quantifying orbital debris from spacecraft in low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, or geotransfer orbit. Her observations helped to prove the existence of Neptune's rings five years before they were confirmed by a 1989 Voyager mission<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>. She also designed the coronagraph used to produce the first-ever image of a circumstellar disk around another star (Beta Pictoris) in 1984. She served as the Group Chief for Planetary Astronomy within the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Office at NASA Johnson Space Center from 2002-2005.
While at JSC, she participated in the 1987-88 [[ANSMET|Antarctic Search for Meteorites]] field season in Antarctica, helping collect nearly 700 meteorites from the Beardmore/Walcott Neve and Allan Hills/Elephant Moraine icefields<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>. She also served as the Program Scientist for the Discovery mission line at NASA Headquarters from 2001-2002, insuring the integrity of the Discovery program selection process during a time of national duress following the chaos of the 9/11 attack<ref></ref>.
Dr Vilas then became the director of the [https://www.mmto.org/ Multiple Mirror Telescope] Observatory from 2005 – 2010, where she managed telescope and instrumentation operations, conducted short-term and long-term observatory planning, and supervised the scientific and technical staff [https://ift.tt/2OZde1u]. MMT Observatory accomplishments under her tenure included the first-ever astronomical extended-field multiple laser guide star adaptive optics observations<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>, and visible to near-infrared observations of the lunar south pole as a participating facility during NASA's 2009 LCROSS mission impact <ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>.
She joined the staff of the Planetary Science Institute in 2011. At PSI, she is the Atsa Suborbital Observatory Project Scientist, a Participating Scientist on NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter LAMP team, and on the Joint Science Team for the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid 162173 Ryugu. She currently serves as a Program Director at the [[National Science Foundation]].
== External Links ==
[https://ift.tt/2CgFt5g Official Website]
== References ==
== Career ==
Vilas earned her BA in Astronomy at Wellesley College and her MS in Astronomy at MIT. She completed her Doctoral degree at the University of Arizona investigating the nature and origin of outer solar system asteroids based on reflectance spectrophotometry.
Vilas was a scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center from 1985 through 2005 where she worked on quantifying orbital debris from spacecraft in low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, or geotransfer orbit. Her observations helped to prove the existence of Neptune's rings five years before they were confirmed by a 1989 Voyager mission<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>. She also designed the coronagraph used to produce the first-ever image of a circumstellar disk around another star (Beta Pictoris) in 1984. She served as the Group Chief for Planetary Astronomy within the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Office at NASA Johnson Space Center from 2002-2005.
While at JSC, she participated in the 1987-88 [[ANSMET|Antarctic Search for Meteorites]] field season in Antarctica, helping collect nearly 700 meteorites from the Beardmore/Walcott Neve and Allan Hills/Elephant Moraine icefields<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>. She also served as the Program Scientist for the Discovery mission line at NASA Headquarters from 2001-2002, insuring the integrity of the Discovery program selection process during a time of national duress following the chaos of the 9/11 attack<ref></ref>.
Dr Vilas then became the director of the [https://www.mmto.org/ Multiple Mirror Telescope] Observatory from 2005 – 2010, where she managed telescope and instrumentation operations, conducted short-term and long-term observatory planning, and supervised the scientific and technical staff [https://ift.tt/2OZde1u]. MMT Observatory accomplishments under her tenure included the first-ever astronomical extended-field multiple laser guide star adaptive optics observations<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>, and visible to near-infrared observations of the lunar south pole as a participating facility during NASA's 2009 LCROSS mission impact <ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>.
She joined the staff of the Planetary Science Institute in 2011. At PSI, she is the Atsa Suborbital Observatory Project Scientist, a Participating Scientist on NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter LAMP team, and on the Joint Science Team for the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid 162173 Ryugu. She currently serves as a Program Director at the [[National Science Foundation]].
== External Links ==
[https://ift.tt/2CgFt5g Official Website]
== References ==
October 14, 2018 at 03:12AM
