People: Penn State Astronomer Is Named Chief Scientist At NASA

At NASA At NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration administrator Daniel Goldin has appointed Pennylvania State University astrophysicist France Cordova to become the agency's chief scientist, effective sometime this month. According to NASA, Cordova will be the administrator's senior scientific adviser and will serve as the principal liaison between the agency and the national and international science community and the general public. Cordova, 46, who has been the head of Penn State's department of astronomy and astrophysics since 1989, will take a temporary leave from the school to work at NASA's Washington, D.C., offices. "NASA is a civil space agency whose purpose is to explore science and technology in space for the benefit of the whole nation," says Cordova. "A couple of decades ago, getting to the moon was a mission people could easily understand. In the view of this administrator [Goldin], many of today's NASA programs look too exclusive and are only understood by the handful of communities that are directly involved with them. "He would like me to find a way to overcome that and bring what NASA is doing to the public," she says. "Now the public is not only the National Academy [of Sciences], AAAS [the American Association for the Advancement of Science], or AIP [the American Institute of Physics], but also the kids who want to become astronauts and the people paying their taxes." Cordova says implementing space station Freedom and creating an overall mission for the agency are two long-term goals that her office will work hard to achieve. "I see one of my efforts as facilitating the development of a science plan that is fully integrated into the overall NASA plan," she says, "and one that helps set the tone for the development of interagency goals in science." C"rdova received her bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1969 and her Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1979. From 1979 until she joined Penn State in 1989, she was deputy group leader of the Space Astronomy and Astrophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Gene D. Block, a professor of biology, has been appointed to the post of vice provost for research at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Block, a researcher in biological rhythms, began his new job September 1. Block will continue as director of the Center for Biological Timing at Virginia, a $10.6 million science and technology center funded by the National Science Foundation. Researchers at the center study the oscillating electrical signals that certain cells produce, such as the high-frequency oscillations of the nervous system. "As vice provost," Block says, "the two things I will be concentrating on are improving the information transfer to our faculty about obtaining grants and helping them become more successful, as well as working to develop an intelligent policy for industrial technology transfer." He says he hopes to develop a computerized system of disseminating information about grant opportunities, to bolster the efforts of Virginia investigators in obtaining funding from external sources. Block says he will model a technology-transfer policy after the successful methods in place at the Center for Biological Timing. Currently, the center is working with Promega Corp., a molecular biology firm in Madison, Wis. Together, faculty at the center and employees of the company are researching basic gene marking techniques to assist in biorhythm research. "The center really represents a new way of doing science," Block says. "This is a case where the industrial component and educational component work very nicely together. We have sort of a model for how basic research, education, and industrial outreach all work together in the same context." Block, 45, received his bachelor's degree in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1975 from Stanford University. He was on the faculty of Stanford from 1975 until moving to Virginia in 1983.

People: Penn State Astronomer Is Named Chief Scientist At NASA

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