Thomas Statler

Thomas Statler is a discipline scientist in the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters and a principal research scientist in the Astronomy Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. On the Planetary Defense Coordination Office team, he serves as program scientist for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. He is also program scientist for the upcoming Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids and the Japan-led MMX mission to the moons of Mars. Before joining NASA in 2014, Statler spent nearly 20 years on the faculty of Ohio University, where he led the creation of its astrophysics research program. From 2009 to 2013, he was a program director at the National Science Foundation. Statler is a past chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Division on Dynamical Astronomy.