We are pleased to welcome as our banquet speaker this evening West Michigan native and research physicist/engineer  Dr. Brent J. Bos.   Dr. Bos is part of the NASA  science team that developed and operated the first robot sent to Mars’ polar  region.  

Named Phoenix, the instrument package settled down along the edge of Mars’ north polar cap and continuously sent back information about conditions there until the cold of the advancing Martian winter doomed it late in 2008.  Among its objectives was a search for water within the polar cap and beneath the planet’s surface.  Now part of the research team analyzing results from the mission at  NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Washington DC,  Dr. Bos earlier participated in development of the lander while at the University of Arizona in Tucson.   

Dr. Bos is quick to point out that his curiosity about space exploration began as a second grader at Zeeland Christian School during a class field trip to the original Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium in the Public Museum’s  Jefferson Street location.     He attended Holland Christian High School and then obtained his undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Michigan before going on to graduate work at the University of Arizona, where he obtained his PhD in 2002.  Prior to beginning graduate studies in 1994, he was employed as an engineer with Donnelly Cooperation in Holland, where he carried out research and development of advanced automotive sensing devices.    

 In addition to his work with the Phoenix Lander, Dr. Bos now leads a Goddard Space Flight Center team working on instrumentation for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched early in the next decade. 

 Dr. Boss has authored or co-authored a number of scientific papers.   He  and his wife have  three children and now reside in Laurel, Md.