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Charles F. Kennel was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was educated in astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard and Princeton. He then joined the UCLA Department of Physics, pursued research and teaching in space plasma physics and astrophysics, and chaired the department for three years. He eventually became the UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor, its chief academic officer. From 1994 to 1996, he was Associate Administrator at NASA and Director of Mission to Planet Earth, the world's largest Earth science program. His experiences at NASA convinced him to devote the rest of his career to Earth and environmental science. |
| Kennel was the ninth Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Vice Chancellor of Marine Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, from 1998 to 2006. Dr. Kennel is the founding director of the UCSD Environment and Sustainability Initiative, an all-campus effort embracing teaching, research, campus operations, and public outreach, and is a distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at Scripps.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics, Kennel has served on many national and international boards and committees, most recently, the NRC's Beyond Einstein Program Assessment Committee. He was a member of the NASA Advisory Council from 1998 to 2006, and its Chair from 2001 to 2005. He has had visiting appointments to the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder), the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), Caltech (Pasadena), Princeton lasma Physics Laboratory, Space Research Institutes (Brazil, Moscow), and the University of Cambridge. He is a recipient of the James Clerk Maxwell Prize (American Physical Society), the Hannes Alfven Prize (European Geophysical Society), the Aurelio Peccei Prize (Accademia Lincei), and the NASA Distinguished Service and Distinguished Public Service Medals. He was the 2007 C.P. Snow Lecturer at Christ's College, Cambridge. |
