Office of the Principal Investigator • OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission 1415 N. 6th Ave. • Tucson, AZ 85705 Tel: (520) 626-1970 • FAX: (520) 626-1973
Biographical Sketch – Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator
Dante Lauretta (born 1970) is a Professor of Planetary Science and Cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He is internationally recognized as an expert in near-Earth asteroid formation and evolution. He is the leader of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return mission. OSIRIS-REx is the United States’ premier mission to visit one of the most Potentially Hazardous near-Earth Asteroids, survey it to assess its impact hazard and resource potential, understand its physical and chemical properties, and return a sample of this body to Earth for detailed scientific analysis. This mission is scheduled for launch in 2016 and will rendezvous with asteroid Bennu in 2018. Sample return to Earth occurs in 2023.
He received a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Arizona in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis in 1997. He was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University from 1997 through 1999. He was an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University from 1999 through 2001. He was hired on to the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2001.
His research interests focus on the chemistry and mineralogy of asteroids and comets as determined by in situ laboratory analysis and spacecraft observations. This work is important for understanding the origin of the Solar System and the role that asteroids and comets played in the formation of Earth’s oceans and the origin of life.
He has received numerous awards including Innovator of the Year – Arizona Governor's Celebration of Innovation Award (2011), the Antarctica Service Medal of the United States of America (2010), Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (2008), and The Alfred O. Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society (2002). Asteroid 5819 is named Lauretta in his honor.