Space Conference Speaker

Jim Bell is a Regents Professor in the School of Earth & Space Exploration at Arizona State University, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Director of ASU’s campus-wide “NewSpace” Initiative that connects faculty, staff, and students with commercial space companies. He is an active astronomer and planetary scientist focusing on the geology, composition, and mineralogy of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. Jim has supported or played key leadership roles in NASA robotic solar system exploration using Hubble, Mars rovers, and flyby and orbiter missions sent to Mars, the Moon, several asteroids, and the outer solar system. He is the author of nine popular science books and was President of The Planetary Society from 2008-2020. He is a Fellow of the AAS and the AGU and has received more than a dozen NASA Group Achievement Awards as well as the AAS Carl Sagan Medal for public communication in science.