Zdeněk Sekanina

Dr. Zdenek Sekanina is a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received his Diploma from Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1959, and his Ph.D. in Astronomy, there in 1963. His research interests are in the fields of the physics, evolution, and dynamics of comets, the physics and dynamics of meteors and fireballs, and interplanetary matter. He has served as a member of NASA's Comet Science Working Group, 1977-80, and was a Co-I on two Giotto experiments. He holds membership in the International Astronomical Union, has served and continues to serve on a number of its committees and working groups concerned with minor planets, satellites and small bodies of the solar system. He has received a NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, and an Outstanding Scientific Performance Certificate from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Minor Planet No. 1913 is named Sekanina in recognition of his many contributions to cometary astronomy.