Maria Zuber

Maria T. Zuber
Zuber speaking at the GRAIL MoonKAM Student Expo in 2012
Born	(1958-06-27) June 27, 1958 (age 58) Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality	American
Fields	Planetary Science
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania, Brown University
Doctoral advisor	Marc Parmentier
Known for	Work on NASA remote-sensing missions; Principal investigator for the GRAIL mission
Notable awards	NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal

Maria T. Zuber (born June 27, 1958) is a member of the National Science Board and the Vice President for Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also holds the position of the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Zuber has been involved in more than half a dozen NASA planetary missions aimed at mapping the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and several asteroids. She is currently the principal investigator for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission, which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Zuber received her B.A. in astronomy and geology from the University of Pennsylvania. She also earned Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees, both in geophysics, from Brown University. Zuber later worked at Johns Hopkins University and served as a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. She joined the faculty of MIT in 1998 and was the chair of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2012. She is the first woman to lead a science department at MIT. Since 2012, she has been Vice President for Research at MIT.

Zuber's professional focus has been on the structure and tectonics of solid solar system objects. She specializes in using gravity and laser altimetry measurements to determine interior structure and evolution. She has been a team member on 10 NASA planetary missions, including Mars Global Surveyor, Dawn, and MESSENGER.