Kelly Fast

Dr. Kelly Fast is the Acting Planetary Defense Officer for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, having previously managed its Near-Earth Object Observations Program for a decade. Dr. Fast also led NASA’s Solar System Observations, Planetary Astronomy and Planetary Atmospheres research programs and she served as Program Scientist for the MAVEN mission to Mars. She investigated ozone and atmospheric chemistry on Mars, winds on Titan, and the effects on Jupiter’s stratosphere of small body impacts as an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center before coming to NASA Headquarters in 2011. She earned her B.S. in Astrophysics from UCLA and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Maryland. Main-belt asteroid 115434 (2003 TU2) was renamed “Kellyfast” in honor of Dr. Fast’s contributions to planetary science.

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