Tim Eastman, New Raytheon Science Group Manager at NSSDC/SSDOO

By Joe King

Dr. Timothy Eastman has joined the Raytheon/ITSS contractor team supporting NSSDC and SSDOO activities at Goddard. Tim assumes the leadership of Raytheon's space physics and astrophysics groups.

Tim has had a long career as a space physics researcher and is best known for his work on magnetospheric boundary layers and the initial discovery of the Low Latitude Boundary Layer. Among his past activities were collaborations with SSDOO scientists, especially Jim Green, Shing Fung, Mona Kessel and Scott Boardsen, on analysis of data from the Hawkeye spacecraft.

In addition, he has served as program director for space plasmas at both NASA/Headquarters and at the National Science Foundation. At NASA, he played a key role, with Stan Shawhan, in initiating the ISTP program and the Space Physics Division (now Sun Earth Connections).

In recent years, Tim has had his own consulting company whose work includes a web site "representing all aspects of plasma science and technology prepared as a service for the general public as well as for the educational and research communities."

Tim is enthusiastic about his new roles at NSSDC and SSDOO, and says "I am delighted to add a unique contribution to our vision for the future and to do so with such a great team. The data center and our data systems work is central to NASA's mission and I look forward to supporting its success.

Tim's arrival frees up two key Raytheon staffers for other activities. Dr. Kirk Borne, leader of the astrophysics group for several years, will focus on his own research, will serve as co-leader for Space Sciences of the recently created Institute for Science and Technology at Raytheon (IST@R), and will support NSSDC and SSDOO on an as-needed basis.

Ms. Tami Kovalick, leader of Raytheon's space physics group for 3+ years, will focus on leading the software team responsible for the evolution of the CDAWeb and SSCWeb systems as well as data ingest pipeline software for various mission data flows.

Thanks to Kirk and Tami for past services, and welcome aboard, Tim!