PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov 4, 1987

       Dr. Charles Elachi has been appointed Assistant Laboratory Director for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's new Office of Space Science and Instruments.

       The new office was created by JPL Director Dr. Lew Allen to oversee space science research efforts and to manage development of the Laboratory's many instruments used in astronomy, planetary science, and in studying the Earth's atmosphere, land masses, and oceans.

       Elachi, 40, assumes his new position after three years as manager of JPL's Earth and Space Sciences Division.

       Elachi has served as principal investigator on several NASA research and development efforts, primarily in applications of space borne imaging radar. He is the principal investigator on the Earth-observational Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR) series. (SIR-A flew on board the space shuttle Columbia in November 1981, and SIR-B flew on space shuttle Challenger in October 1984. NASA has proposed that SIR-C fly aboard the shuttle in November of 1992.)

       He has conducted variety of imaging radar experiments in wide range of disciplines including geology, oceanography, archeology, and comparative planetology. Elachi is also project scientist on the Space borne Imaging Radar Project.

       He is member of the Magellan Venus Radar Mapping Mission science team, and has also participated in several space mission development studies, including spacecraft missions to Venus, Mars, comets, the Moon, and other solar system bodies.

       Elachi has authored or co-authored more than 180 publications and two textbooks in the fields of electromagnetic theory, remote-sensing physics, remote- sensing geoscientific applications, wave propagation, and integrated optics. He also lectures at the California Institute of Technology on the physics of remote sensing.

       He has been awarded numerous honors, including this year's Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers Geoscience and Remote Sensing Distinguished Achievement Award, the Pecora Award (1985), the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1982), and the NASA Group Achievement Award for the SIR-A Team (1982).

       Elachi received his bachelor's degree in physics and engineering at the University of Grenoble and at the Polytechnic Institute, both in France, in 1968. He was awarded master's degree in electrical sciences from Caltech in 1969, and doctorate in electrical sciences from Caltech in 1971. Elachi received master's degree in business administration from the University of Southern California in 1978, and master's degree in geology from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1983.

       Elachi was born April 18, 1947, in Beirut, Lebanon. He and his family reside in Altadena, Calif.

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