Lin Chambers (née Hartung) is an American physical scientist. She has developed and contributed to multiple international programs around science education and

citizen science The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

NASA Langley Research Center The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, near the Chesapeake Bay front of Langley Air Force Base, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also ...

Early life and education

Chambers is an alumna of

East Lansing High School East Lansing High School is a public high school in the city of East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is managed by the East Lansing Public Schools district. The school is located about a mile north of the Michigan State University campu ...

; her grandfather is the chemist Walter Henry Hartung. She obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautical engineering at

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

in 1985. She began working with the

as an undergraduate student at RPI in 1983 through the NASA co-op program before permanently moving to

Hampton, Virginia Hampton is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 137,148 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, seve ...

. She participated in the

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is a higher education institute headquartered in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a suburb of Strasbourg, France. It is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications f ...

Summer Session in 1989 in Strasbourg, France. Chambers received her PhD in aerospace engineering at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

in 1991. Her dissertation, advised by Fred DeJarnette, was the creation of a model to predict "radiation absorption and emission coefficients in thermochemical nonequilibrium flows."

Career

Per her training, Chambers began at NASA as an aerospace engineer. Her work focused on atmospheric entry of spacecraft. Starting in the mid-1990s, she adapted her expertise in radiative transfer to atmospheric science. This included working on the

Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) is an NASA climatological experiment from Earth orbit. The CERES are scientific satellite instruments, part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), designed to measure solar-reflected and Eart ...

(CERES) project to study the effect of clouds on the Earth's energy budget, and the

CALIPSO CALIPSO was a joint NASA (US) and CNES (France) environmental satellite, built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, which was launched atop a Delta II rocket on April 28, 2006. Its name stands for Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Sa ...

satellite mission to detect clouds and aerosols from space. In 1997, she founded the Student Cloud Observation Online (S'COOL) project, a citizen science initiative which engages young students in scientific observations of local cloud patterns, collecting that data for validation of measurements by the CERES satellite. As of 2016, the S’COOL project had received more than 144,500 cloud observations from students in 77 countries, including multiple observations from ocean basins taken onboard transoceanic ships. In March 2017, the project was merged with the

GLOBE Program The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is a worldwide hands-on, science and education program focusing on the environment, now active in over 125 countries worldwide. It works to promote the teaching and l ...

. In 2004, Chambers helped to start the MY NASA DATA project, with the intention of making

earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

datasets accessible to

K-12 K-1 is a professional kickboxing promotion established in 1993 by karateka Kazuyoshi Ishii. Originally under the ownership of the Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG), K-1 was considered to be the largest Kickboxing organization in the world. ...

teachers, students, and amateur scientists. From 2016 to 2018 she served as the interim program manager of the

NASA Headquarters The Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building at 300 E Street SW in Washington, D.C. houses NASA leadership who provide overall guidance and direction to the US government executive branch agency NASA, under the leadership of the NASA administ ...

. As of 2020, Chambers has authored over 150 publications in aerospace engineering, atmospheric science, and science education.

Honors and awards

* 1999

NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronauts. To be awarded the medal, a NASA employee ...

* 2009

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, a ...

* 2014

Alumni Hall of Fame * 2015

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

Fellow for her contributions to science education * 2024

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

Excellence in Earth and Space Science Education Award

References

{{authority control American women engineers American aerospace engineers Women aerospace engineers American atmospheric scientists Women atmospheric scientists Citizen science NASA people Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni North Carolina State University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people East Lansing High School alumni