by Elton Gomes
NASA announced it will award the Distinguished Service Medal for 2018 to Indian-American engineer Dr Hanwant Singh. Considered to be the highest award of recognition, the medal is bestowed upon those who have shown distinguished service, ability, or courage, and who have made significant contributions that represent some progress to their mission.
Singh presently leads a group of scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in the Earth Science Division in Moffett Field, California. The Indian American engineer completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology of Technology, Delhi. Singh then went on to acquire his doctorate in the same subject from the University of Pittsburgh. Since the past 30 years, Singh has been involved in studying the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere, and has published over 220 research papers and one textbook in this area.
His main research goal is to gain a better understanding of how human activities impact the chemistry and climate of the earth’s atmosphere. Singh does this through direct observations and data analysis.
With this goal in sight, Singh has designed and led major international field campaigns. He currently is in charge of atmospheric scientists at the NASA Ames Research Centre and was a former director of Atmospheric Chemistry laboratory at SRI International.
Besides being the recipient of NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal, Singh has also received the Frank A. Chambers Award for “outstanding achievement in the art and science of air pollution,” the NASA Exceptional Leadership/Scientific Achievement Medals (1998, 2005, 2009), and the H. J. Allen Prize.
Singh has single-handedly pushed forward the understanding of the changes occurring on Earth and its atmosphere. In addition, Singh was the finalist for the 2017 Samuel J Heyman Awards in the career achievement category, after which Jack Kaye, Associate Director at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said, “He is probably one of the few people who have really, significantly distinguished themselves on all sides of it—measurements, analysis and leadership,” as per a report in the Better India.
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