Ghassem Asrar

Ghassem R. Asrar is an Iranian-American scientist in the field of Earth and space science. Since November 2019 he has served as the Senior Vice President for Science at the Universities Space Research Association.

Education and early years Asrar was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran in a family where he was the eldest child among nine siblings. He moved to the United States in 1978 to continue his graduate education at Michigan State University.

Asrar earned two master's degrees, in environmental biophysics (MS '78) and civil engineering (MS '81), and an interdisciplinary doctorate degree in the field of environmental physics (Ph.D. '81) at Michigan State University. He conducted research and trained undergraduate and post-graduate students for nine years in academia prior to joining the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1987.

Career In 1987 Asrar moved to NASA Headquarters as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist through the California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He developed new programs in remote sensing science and land surface modeling.

Asrar is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).