Jonathan Lunine

Distinguished planetary scientist and astrophysicist Jonathan I. Lunine is the chief scientist of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As chief scientist, Lunine guides the laboratory’s scientific research and development efforts, drives innovation across JPL’s missions and programs, and enhances collaborations with NASA Headquarters, NASA centers, Caltech, academia, the science community, government agencies, and industry partners. In addition, he oversees the formulation of JPL’s scientific policies and priorities and guides the integrity of missions that JPL manages for NASA.

Lunine served as the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. A Caltech alumnus, he has performed pioneering research on the formation and evolution of planetary systems, the nature of planetary interiors and atmospheres, and where environments suited for life might exist in the solar system and beyond. His deep expertise helps JPL continue to seek answers to fundamental questions that crosscut the diverse science portfolio of the laboratory.

Lunine has collaborated with JPL on numerous missions. He was a guest investigator for the ultraviolet spectrometer on NASA’s Voyager 2 Neptune encounter and an interdisciplinary scientist on the Cassini/Huygens mission, and he is co-investigator on the agency’s Juno mission to Jupiter as well as for the MISE (Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa) instrument on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. Lunine is also a member of the gravity science team for Europa Clipper and the Gravity & Geophysics of Jupiter and Galilean Moons gravity experiment on the ESA (European Space Agency) JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission.