APL Space Physicist Edmond Roelof Elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union

Edmond Roelof, a space physicist with The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., has been elected a 2004 Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Fellows of the Union are scientists who have attained acknowledged eminence in some branch of geophysics. The total number of Fellows elected each year may not exceed 0.1 percent of the total membership.

Roelof was recognized by AGU for his "continued innovative research in space physics and for his founding of the field of energetic neutral atom imaging." Energetic neutral atom imagers, like the APL-developed imaging instrument onboard NASA's Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft, make visible the 3-D structure of planetary space environments that were previously invisible to remote imaging techniques.

An internationally recognized authority on space plasma physics, Roelof has contributed his energetic neutral atom imaging expertise to many NASA and European Space Agency missions including Astrid-1, IMAGE, Cassini, and Mars Express. He has published more than 250 papers on terrestrial and planetary magnetospheric, interplanetary, solar, heliospheric and cosmic ray physics, and has participated on instrument science teams for various NASA and/or ESA deep-space missions including Pioneers 10 and 11, Interplanetary Monitoring Platforms 7 and 8, Voyagers 1 and 2, Ulysses, Geotail, and Galileo.

Roelof received his A.B. in physics from the University of Calif., Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Calif., Berkeley. He has been a resident of Columbia, Md., since he joined APL in 1974.

Other APL employees who are AGU Fellows include space plasma physicists Raymond Greenwald (2002), Donald Williams (1991), and Stamatios Krimigis (1980).