Derek Sears Named W.M. Keck Professor of Space and Planetary Sciences

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Dean Donald Bobbitt has appointed Derek Sears to the W. M. Keck Professorship in Space and Planetary Sciences. 

The W. M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles made a $500,000 grant to fund Sears’ research into the existence of water on Mars and create the professorship. The laboratory housing the large planetary environmental chamber that Sears and his colleagues use for experiments has been named the W. M. Keck Laboratory for Space Simulation. The W.M. Keck Foundation’s gift received matching funds through the University of Arkansas’ Matching Gift program.

“The professorship is recognition by the university of the importance of space and planetary science to its mission of strengthening the state and improving the learning environment of its students and faculty,” said Sears. “But it will also bring me the personal resources I need to pursue these objectives with added vigor, and to travel and interact with people outside the university who can help us achieve this mission.”

Sears focuses his research on meteorites, the origins of other extraterrestrial materials and on near surface processes on Mars. Sears wants to determine the conditions necessary for the formation of liquid water on the planet and if water can remain stable long enough to sustain life.

As director of the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, he and colleagues have developed new coursework for master’s and doctoral degree programs in space and planetary science. The first students enrolled this spring.

In the summer, he oversees an internship program that brings undergraduates who are interested in space and planetary science to campus, to explore research and career options in the field.

Sears believes these programs are drawing a new kind of student to the U of A.

“Students all over the country are interested in space and planetary science, but very few programs exist, so they go to the local college and study chemistry or physics or geology. Here we have a large program offered by no less than six academic departments specifically targeted to space and planetary science,” said Sears.

The UA program is unique in higher education in that it is being offered through an equal partnership of chemistry/biochemistry, physics, biological sciences, geosciences, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering. 

Donald Bobbitt, dean of Fulbright College, said: “His research is cutting edge, his efforts to broaden the curriculum across disciplines have been enormously successful, and his results are so impressive that they can draw the attention and support of a leading national foundation such as the Keck Foundation.  I am pleased to appoint Derek Sears to this professorship. It’s an honor he richly deserves.”

In December 2004, Cambridge University Press released “The Origin of Chondrules and Chondrites,” a new book by Sears in which he examines the origin of meteorites and their role in the formation of our solar system. Until recently, he served as the editor of “Meteoritics and Planetary Science,” an international planetary science journal.

In 2003, Sears was a co-investigator for a $330,000 grant from NASA to Space Works of Tucson, Ariz., to develop a sample collector for the space center’s Hera mission. Hera is a proposal being led by the space center to send a spacecraft to near-Earth asteroids, reconnoiter from two to 12 months, then swoop down to collect samples from three sites and return them to Earth.

The professorship will support these and other projects Sears is directing, while the Keck award will enable Sears to carry out the Mars research through funding graduate assistantships, doctoral research, technical support, and visiting scientists, as well as providing travel support that will allow researchers to attend national and international conferences to report their findings.

The Matching Gift Program was made possible through a $300 million challenge grant from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation.