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American astronomer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael H. Hecht is a research scientist, associate director for research management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory,[1] and former deputy project director of the Event Horizon Telescope.[2] He served as lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer instrument on the Phoenix Mars lander,[3] and as principal investigator for the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) instrument on the Mars 2020 rover.[4]
Michael H. Hecht | |
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| Alma mater | Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University |
| Known for | Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer, Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment, Event Horizon Telescope |
| Awards | NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Planetary Science, Surface Science |
| Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Haystack Observatory |
| Website | www |
Hecht obtained an A.B. in Physics from Princeton University, an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1982.[5]
Hecht joined the staff of California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1982,[6] where he researched microelectromechanical systems, surface and interface science, scientific instrument development, and planetary science.[5] He co-invented the Ballistic Electron Emission Microscopy system[7] and published several highly-cited papers on metal-semiconductor interfaces,[8][9] for which he received the newly-renamed Lew Allen Award for Excellence in 1990.[6][10] At JPL, as the supervisor of the Microdevices Laboratory's In-Situ Exploration Technology Group,[11] he developed the concept for the Deep Space 2 micro-landers,[12] which flew to Mars in 1999.[13] He was later named the project manager, co-investigator, and project scientist for the Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment (MECA) instrument for the cancelled Mars Surveyor 2001 mission.[5][14] The MECA instrument was later flown as the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer on the Phoenix mission to Mars in 2007,[15] with Hecht as lead scientist and co-investigator, and was instrumental in the discovery of perchlorate in Martian soil.[16][17] Based on that work, Hecht published highly-cited papers on the chemistry of Martian soil and the existence of water on Mars,[18][19][20][21] and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2010.[22]
After almost 30 years at JPL, Hecht was appointed as an associate director of MIT's Haystack Observatory.[23] In 2014, the MOXIE instrument, for which Hecht is the principal investigator, was selected as one of the instruments on the Perseverance rover for the Mars 2020 mission.[24][25][26] In 2019, Hecht was one of the scientists awarded the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work with the Event Horizon Telescope to produce the first image of a supermassive black hole.[27][28]
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