Ghassem Asrar

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Ghassem R. Asrar is an Iranian-American scientist in Earth and space science. He was born in Shiraz, Iran, and was the eldest of nine siblings. He moved to the United States in 1978 to study at Michigan State University, earning two master’s degrees—in environmental biophysics and civil engineering—and a PhD in environmental physics in 1981. After nine years in academia, he joined NASA in 1987 as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist through Caltech/JPL, where he helped develop remote sensing and land-surface modeling programs. From 1992 to 1998 he was the Chief Scientist for NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS), leading scientific priorities and measurement objectives, and building training programs for Earth scientists. In 1998 he became Associate Administrator for NASA’s Office of Earth Science, later serving as Deputy Administrator of NASA’s Science Directorate, overseeing satellites and robotic missions across the solar system. He left NASA in 2006 to become Deputy Administrator for Natural Resources and Agricultural Systems at the USDA Agricultural Research Service. In 2008 he became Director of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, a position he held until 2013, then led the Joint Global Research Institute at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. Since November 2019 he has been Senior Vice President for Science at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). Asrar has received several honors, including the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (1999), the NASA Medal for Outstanding Leadership (2000), the NASA Exceptional Performance Award, and the AGU Ambassador Award (2014). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the IEEE.