Michael Julian Drake

Michael Julian Drake
Michael Julian Drake
Born	July 8, 1946; Planetary Sciences ; Management
Institutions	University of Arizona ; Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
Doctoral students	Nancy Chabot

Michael Julian Drake (July 8, 1946 – September 21, 2011), regent's professor, was the director of the

HED meteorites

and studied the origin of water in terrestrial planets.

Education

Drake earned his B.S. degree in geology with honors from Victoria University of Manchester in Manchester, England in 1967 and earned his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Oregon in 1972.

Career

Drake joined the University of Arizona planetary sciences faculty as an assistant professor in 1973. He served as the associate director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory from 1978 through 1980 and was an associate professor of planetary sciences from 1978 through 1983. In 1986 and 1987, he was the Associate Dean of Science, and in 1994 he became the head of the Department of Planetary Sciences and the Director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1994. He served in that capacity until his death in 2011.

In addition to his academic and scientific achievements, Drake was an accomplished administrator. He helped develop promotion and tenure policies for the College of Science and was instrumental in establishing a joint position between the colleges of science and education to create science education programs. Drake also led a major undergraduate teaching effort in planetary sciences, even though the department was created as a graduate program.

Drake played a key role in a succession of ever many high-profile space projects that garnered international attention for LPL and the University. Those include the

Gamma-Ray Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey Orbiter, the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Phoenix

Mars Lander.

Drake had over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in his career. He was diagnosed with liver cancer, and died on September 21, 2011.^[3]