Maria Zuber

Born on 27 June 1958, geophysicist Maria Zuber is the vice president for research at MIT. Zuber grew up in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, where she spent many nights with her coal-miner grandfather stargazing through a telescope he scrimped to buy. Fascinated by astronomy, Zuber attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her BA in both astronomy and geology. She then went on to earn her ScM and PhD degrees in geophysics from Brown University. After stints working at Johns Hopkins University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Zuber joined the faculty of MIT in 1995. As chair of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2012, she became the first woman to lead an MIT science department. Zuber became the first woman to run a NASA planetary spacecraft mission when she took on the role of principal investigator on NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission to map the Moon’s gravitational field. Zuber has also held leadership positions for at least a half dozen other NASA missions to the Moon, Mercury, Mars, and several asteroids. Among her many honors and awards, she was the second woman to receive NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal. Since May 2016 she has been serving as chair of the National Science Board. (Photo credit: Donna Coveney)

Date in History: 27 June 1958