Ashwin Vasavada

Ashwin is the MSL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. He conducts research on the climate history of Mars, the weather on Jupiter and Saturn, and polar ices on Mercury and the Moon.

He is one among the proud Indians behind NASA’s most ambitious and recent mission- ‘Mars Curiosity rover’; for which he served as the Deputy Project Scientist. He was also part of several spacecraft missions by NASA such as the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the Cassini Mission to Saturn, Mars Polar Lander, and Mars Odyssey.

Ashwin’s other areas of interest include Mars’ surface properties, climate history and polar processes, environmental policy, atmospheric dynamics, climate change, energy policy, basic research, and science education.

Ashwin completed his B.S. in geophysics and space physics from the University of California, Los Angeles (1992) and holds a Ph.D. in Planetary Science from the California Institute of Technology (1998).