William (Bill) Feldman has been awarded the 2023 Eugene Shoemaker Distinguished Scientist Medal, a lifetime achievement award given to a scientist who has significantly contributed to our understanding the Moon and other small bodies in our Solar System.
Feldman, a Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Planetary Science Institute, was cited for significant scientific contributions throughout the course of his career, according to NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), the group that selects the award winner.
“I cannot find the proper words to describe the thanks I owe to all of my colleagues that I worked with over the years who made our science achievements possible,” said Feldman, who joined PSI in 2005. “The Shoemaker medal that we have received is as much owned by them as by me.”
“Dr. Feldman earned a B.S. in Physics from MIT, a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford, and was a staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining PSI. His areas of expertise include Neutron detectors, Spectroscopy, Remote sensing, and Space-based observing. It is hard to overstate the effect that Dr. Feldman has had on lunar science and planetary science as a whole; in addition to contributing to the discovery of water in the lunar polar regions, he nearly singlehandedly founded the field of planetary neutron spectroscopy and pioneered X-ray, gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopic techniques. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the analysis and interpretation of planetary albedo neutron data, and more than 40 years’ experience in the analysis and interpretation of solar wind and magnetospheric plasma data,” SSERVI’s citation said.
Feldman has held various mission roles (from Calibration/Testing, Data validation, Instrument operations, Instrument PI, Mission Co-I, Mission science team, etc.), for several NASA missions including ACE, Dawn, Lunar Prospector, Mariner 10, Mars Observer, Mars Odyssey, MESSENGER, and Pioneer 10 and 11. He served as Chairman of the NASA Solar Probe Science Study Team between 1988 and 1995. He received a Los Alamos National Laboratory distinguished performance award in 1985, was named a Laboratory Fellow in 1987, and was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1996. He has received a Selected Distinguished Visiting Scholar award from Keck Institute for Space Studies at Cal Tech, 2013, has received recognition from the International Astronomical Union by having an asteroid named after him: Asteroid (6756) Williamfeldman = 1978 VX3, and is author or co-author of more than 350 scientific papers in Space Physics research.
The award is named after American geologist and one of the founders of planetary science Eugene Shoemaker (1928-1997).
Credit: Alan Fischer/PSI.
