Contact:

Cynthia M. O'Carroll
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/614-5563)

November 16, 2001 - RELEASE NO: 01-104

KING RECEIVES NORDBERG AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP OF NASA'S EARTH OBSERVING SYSTEM

Dr. Michael King, senior project scientist for NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), is the 2001 recipient of the William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Sciences. The award was presented November 16 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. King is the eighth recipient since the Goddard honor was first introduced in 1994.

Nordberg was a past director of Space Applications at Goddard and a pioneer in using remote sensing to investigate the Earth and its environment. The award named in his honor is given annually a Goddard employee "who best exhibits qualities of broad scientific perspective, enthusiastic programmatic and technical leadership on the national and international levels, wide recognition by peers and substantial research accomplishments in understanding Earth science processes".

King has been the senior project scientist for the EOS since 1992. In this position, he has skillfully orchestrated the day-to-day interfacing of the Earth Science community with NASA's Earth Science Enterprise to ensure that both scientific and programmatic requirements for the program are met. He is honored for his leadership and his scientific contribution in the field of radiative transfer and its application to ground-based, airborne and satellite remote sensing techniques of clouds and aerosols.

He also serves as the principal investigator and team leader of the Atmosphere Discipline Group of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) science team and is a member of the science team of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument. MODIS and CERES are key instruments on the orbiting Terra and planned Aqua satellites.

King has also led and participated in many field projects including the recently conducted SAFARI-2000 field campaign in southern Africa. He excels in theoretical studies, in instrument development, in analysis of satellite and aircraft data and writing review papers.

His research experience includes conceiving, developing and operating multispectral scanning radiometers from a number of aircraft platforms in field experiments ranging form arctic stratus clouds to smoke from the Kuwait oil fires and biomass burning in Brazil and southern Africa. He has lectured on global change on all seven continents.

King is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and is a recipient of the Verner E. Suomi Award of the AMS for fundamental contributions to remote sensing and radiative transfer. He received an honorary doctorate from Colorado College in 1995. He is a Goddard Senior Fellow and a recipient of numerous NASA awards including the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and NASA Exceptional Service Medal. He is also an adjunct professor of Meteorology at the University of Maryland and adjunct professor of Oceanography at Dalhousie University.

He received a bachelor's degree in physics from Colorado College in 1971 and his mater's and doctorate degrees in atmospheric sciences from the University of Arizona in 1973 and 1977, respectively. He joined the Goddard Space Flight Center as a physical scientist in the Climate and Radiation Branch, Laboratory for Atmospheres, in January 1978.

King resides in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife, Diana, a systems analyst for the Department of Health and Human Services, in Washington, D.C. His son, Jason, is a financial analyst for H & R Block Financial Services in Midlothian, Va. His daughter, Hailey, is a graphic designer for KNOTT Laboratory, Inc. in Englewood, Colo.