Biography:Harry McSween

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Short description: American geologist
Harry "Hap" Younger McSween Jr
Born (1945-09-29) September 29, 1945 (age 78)
Charlotte, North Carolina
Alma materUniversity of Georgia, Harvard
Known forMeteoritics
AwardsLeonard Medal, Leconte Medal, J. Lawrence Smith Medal, Whipple Award
Scientific career
FieldsMeteoritics
InstitutionsUniversity of Tennessee at Knoxville
ThesisPetrologic and chemical studies of the (C3) carbonaceous meteorites (1977)
Doctoral advisorJohn A. Wood
Websiteweb.eps.utk.edu/~faculty/mcsween/mcsween.html

Harry "Hap" Y. McSween Jr. is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Planetary Geoscience at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He has published papers and popular books about meteorites and planetary exploration, and textbooks on geochemistry and cosmochemistry.

Biography

McSween was born September 29, 1945, in Charlotte, North Carolina.[1] After finishing school he attended The Citadel, where he graduated with a B.S. in chemistry in 1967. He then pursued an M.S. in geology at the University of Georgia, where he graduated in 1969. The title of his thesis was "Petrological and geochemical studies in the Coronaca area, Greenwood County, South Carolina". He then joined the United States Air Force where he was a pilot flying C-141 aircraft around the world.

After his military service he went on to Harvard, where he became John A. Wood's first graduate student. It was here that Edward Stolper and he came up with the idea that some meteorites might originate from Mars.[2][3] After graduating with a PhD in 1977, he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee. He became involved with the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 as a member of the science team, then on the team for Mars Global Surveyor. Since then McSween has been a co-investigator on the Mars Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers and Dawn asteroid orbiter missions.[4]

McSween has been the elected President of the Meteoritical Society, Chair of the Planetary Division of the Geological Society of America, and Councilor and President of the Geological Society of America. He has also served on numerous advisory committees for NASA and the National Research Council.[4] In 2021, McSween was elected into the membership of the National Academy of Sciences.[5][6]

He has received the Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society, the Leconte Medal from the South Carolina Science Council, the J. Lawrence Smith Medal from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences,[2] and the Whipple Award of the Planetary Science Division of the American Geophysical Union. In 2013, he was named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Universities Professor of the Year.

McSween also has an asteroid named for him: 5223 McSween (1981 EX6).[4]

Publications

Books

Peer-reviewed journal articles

He is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, of which the most cited are:

  • What we have learned about Mars from SNC meteorites by McSween Jr, H.Y. Meteoritics Volume 29, Issue 6, 1994, Pages 757-779 ( cited 282 times)
  • The chemical composition of martian soil and rocks returned by the mobile alpha proton x-ray spectrometer: Preliminary results from the x-ray mode" by Rieder, R.a, Economou, T., Wänke, H., Turkevich, A., Crisp, J.c, Brückner, J., Dreibus, G., McSween Jr., H.Y. Science Volume 278, Issue 5344, December 5, 1997, Pages 1771-1774. (cited 227 times)

See also

References

  1. American Men & Women of Science. R.R. Bowker. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4144-3305-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=allYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22McSween,+harry+y%22+1945. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Drake, Michael J. (January 1, 2002). "2001 Leonard Medal Citation for Harry Y. McSween, Jr.". Meteoritics & Planetary Science 37 (1): 5–6. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2002.tb00792.x. Bibcode2002M&PS...37....5D. 
  3. McSween, H.Y. Jr.; E.M. Stolper (1980). "Basaltic meteorites and their parent planets". Scientific American 242 (6): 54–63. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0680-54. Bibcode1980SciAm.242f..54M. 
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Harry Y. McSween at UTK". UTK [|permanent dead link|dead link}}]. http://web.eps.utk.edu/~faculty/mcsween/mcsween.html. 
  5. "Hap McSween Named to National Academy of Sciences" (in en-US). 2021-04-28. https://news.utk.edu/2021/04/28/hap-mcsween-named-to-national-academy-of-sciences/. 
  6. "News from the National Academy of Sciences". April 26, 2021. http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2021-nas-election.html. "Newly elected members and their affiliations at the time of election are: … McSween, Harry Y., Jr.; chancellor's professor emeritus, department of earth and planetary sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville" , entry in member directory:"Member Directory". National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20000043.html.