NASA medal to UA's Alfred McEwen

Alfred McEwen [right, credit UA] professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, (LPL) has been awarded NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor NASA gives to someone who was not a government employee when the service was performed.

McEwen accepted the award on June 30 during a ceremony at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

As the principal investigator on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, McEwen oversees the most ambitious undertaking ever launched to image another planet.

Under McEwen's leadership, the HiRISE mission team has gone out of its way to serve not only the science community but also the general public by making efforts to release the data as quickly as possible after they become available and making them accessible via user-friendly tools.

I'm a huge fan of the HiRise images as you can tell from the number of times I post about a particularly exciting or beautiful new scene.

[this is taken from the UA news release]