Paul Hertz was named Director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA in March 2012. He is responsible for the Agency’s research programs and missions necessary to discover how the universe works, to explore how the universe began and developed into its present form, and to search for Earth-like planets. He previously served as the Chief Scientist of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, managing the Directorate’s science solicitation activities and ensuring the scientific integrity of the Directorate’s programs. Dr. Hertz joined the NASA Office of Space Science as a Senior Scientist in 2000 and has managed projects and programs in astrophysics, heliophysics, and planetary science.
Dr. Hertz received BS degrees in both Physics and Mathematics from MIT, followed by a PhD in Astronomy from Harvard University in 1983. He then joined the staff of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC as an astrophysicist, a position he held until joining NASA in 2000. Dr. Hertz’s research concentrated on X-ray emission from galactic neutron stars, black holes, and globular clusters. He authored or co-authored over 100 papers, including observational papers in every band of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio to gamma ray as well as theory and computation papers. From 1993-2001 he was Associate Professor of Computational Sciences and Space Sciences at George Mason University.
