Point of Contact  Pamela Clark

Pamela Elizabeth Clark, inspired by John Kennedy and Werner von Braun, decided by the time she was thirteen years old that she wanted to explore outer space for the rest of her life. She thought "if they can put a man on the Moon, they can put a woman on Mars: me." Then, and now, one of her major goals in life is to explore under every rock, remote or nearby.

Pamela obtained her BA from St. Joseph College, a tiny Catholic women's college in Connecticut. While obtaining her PhD in planetary geochemistry from the University of Maryland, she worked at GSFC/NASA in Greenbelt, MD and the Astrogeology Branch of the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona, simulating, analyzing, correlating, and interpreting lunar X-ray spectra. She was a member of the group that pioneered the use of orbital x-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers to determine the composition of planetary surfaces. She participated in the Flagstaff Lunar Data Consortium, the first attempt to create a common format database for all remote sensing data for a planetary body. She then joined the technical staff at NASA/JPL, working with the Goldstone Solar System Radar group, and expanding her remote sensing background to include radar, thermal and near infrared studies of planetary surfaces with particular emphasis on the study of Mercury's surface. She eventually returned to Goddard to work with the XGRS team on the NEAR mission to asteroid Eros. She is currently involved in developing advanced concepts, tools, technologies, and architectures for space missions to extreme environments, with particular emphasis on the Moon and Mars.

Dr. Clark has done several stints in academic institutions, including Murray State University in Kentucky, Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, and Catholic University in Washington DC.

Springer has published her two books "Dynamic Planet: Mercury in the Context of its Environment" and "Remote Sensing Tools for Exploration".

Pamela is also a designer in 'soft' media (furniture, clothing, needlework), singer, composer of choral music, and oral historian.