Contact:
Nancy G. Neal
NASA Goddard Spc Flt Ctr
(Phone: 301/286-0039)

GODDARD SCIENTIST RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS AWARD

Dr. Charles L. Bennett, senior scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is the latest recipient of the prestigious John C. Lindsay Memorial Award for Space Science. The award is bestowed upon space scientists who have made significant contributions in their field.

"I am both delighted and humbled by being chosen to receive the John C. Lindsay Memorial Award. It is wonderful to be honored," said Bennett. "Even more importantly, this award recognizes the efforts of the many wonderful people I am privileged to work with."

In 2002, Bennett was assigned the position of Senior Scientist for Experimental Cosmology at Goddard. He is also the Principal Investigator for the wildly successful Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). WMAP recently specified the age, content, history and other key properties of the universe with unprecedented accuracy and precision. In this position, he led
the proposal efforts and mission design and development. In addition, he is responsible for ongoing mission operations, data analysis, and scientific results.

For six years, Bennett served as branch head of the Infrared Astrophysics Branch in the space science directorate at NASA. Bennett also held the title of Deputy Principal Investigator of the Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR) instrument and participated as a science team member on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE).

Bennett has been the recipient of numerous awards. For his work on COBE, Bennett was awarded NASA's highest scientific honor, the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award. In 1999, Bennett was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was presented NASA's Leadership Award. This year, Bennett was honored as the Alumnus of the Year by the Physics
Department of the University of Maryland.

Born in New Brunswick, N.J. but raised in Bethesda, Md., Bennett graduated from the University of Maryland in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy. He received a Ph.D in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1984.

Bennett is the son of Maryland residents Lawrence and Devora Bennett. Bennett and his wife, Renee Marlin-Bennett, reside in Bethesda with their two sons, Andrew and Ethan.

The John C. Lindsay Memorial Award for Space Science is named in honor of Dr. John C. Lindsay who contributed to the study of the Sun and who founded the Orbiting Solar Observatory Project. The award has been granted in areas of spectrum gamma rays, interstellar extinction and the development of Galileo's Mass Spectrometer.

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