Dr. Joel Parker is a Director in the Solar System Science and Exploration Division of Southwest Research Institute.  During his 30+ years at SwRI, he has led fundamental research and analysis programs and has been a member of science and management teams for several space missions. His areas of research include solar system objects such as comets, the Moon, asteroids, and trans-Neptunian / Kuiper belt objects, as well as massive stars and OB associations.  He has observed at ground-based observatories around the world and with space-based observatories including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, Shuttle-borne telescopes (the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, SWUIS), and for over two dozen Hubble Space Telescope projects ranging from interstellar comets to galaxies and their stars that are over a hundred times the mass of our Sun.  His experience on space missions includes being the Principal Investigator for the final epoch of the Alice ultraviolet spectrograph instrument on the Rosetta mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the project manager for similar spectrographs on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt.  Dr. Parker currently is a science team member and Assistant Project Scientist on New Horizons and the manager of the Science Operations Center for NASA’s Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids.