Paul Spudis

Paul D. Spudis (born 1952) is an American geologist and lunar scientist.

In 1976 he earned a B.S. in geology at the Arizona State University. Following his graduation he performed an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during the Mars landing of that year. The following year he went to Brown University to study planetary geology, with a focus on the Moon. A year later he earned his Masters Degree and moved back to Arizona where he started working for Ron Greeley who had just joined Arizona State University. In 1982 he earned a Ph.D. in geology at the university.

After graduation he went to work for the U.S. Geological Survey. In the following years he spent in lunar studies and promoting the idea of lunar exploration. He became a principal investigator at the NASA Office of Space Science, Solar System Exploration Division planetary geology program. His specialty is in the study of volcanism and impact processes on the planets, including Mercury and Mars.

He later joined Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston as a staff scientist. Eventually he joined the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and became senior staff scientist. He returned to the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston in 2008 and is currently a Senior Staff Scientist there.