Bruce William Hapke

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Bruce Hapke is a noted American planetary scientist. An expert in bidirectional reflectance spectroscopy, Hapke has been described as the father of planetary remote sensing.

[edit] Career

Hapke earned his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1953 in physics. He was awarded his Ph. D. in engineering physics from Cornell University in 1962. Hapke was a Research Associate at the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University from 1960-1967. In 1967, he became a professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. In the course of his long and distinguished career, Hapke was a member of the Mariner 10 and Viking Imaging Science Teams and a principal investigator for the study of Apollo lunar samples. He is a past Chairman of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. Dr. Hapke is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

[edit] Awards and Honors

• The mineral Hapkeite, a recently discovered lunar mineral was named in his honor
• Asteroid 3549 Hapke
• Awarded the Kuiper Prize in 2001, the most distinguished award given by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences
• Fellow of the American Geophysical Union