THE 2025 HUMANS TO THE MOON & MARS SUMMIT
an Explore Mars Event
May 28-29, 2025
Jack Morton Auditorium,
The George Washington University
Washington D.C.
Dr. Daniel Glavin
NASA GSFC | Senior Scientist for Sample Return
Dr. Daniel Glavin is an Astrobiologist and the Senior Scientist for Sample Return in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Glavin looks for the chemical building blocks of life in extraterrestrial materials, including meteorites from Mars and samples returned from the Moon and asteroids. He is currently leading the sample organics analysis team on NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission that collected samples from the surface of asteroid Bennu and delivered over 120 grams to Earth in 2023. Dr. Glavin is a member of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument science team on the Curiosity rover that has been exploring Gale Crater, Mars since 2012. He is also a science team member on JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission set for launch in 2026 and return samples collected from Phobos in 2031. In recognition of Dr. Glavin’s research, the International Astronomical Union named an asteroid after him, asteroid (24480) Glavin. He received the Antarctica Service Medal of the United States in 2003, the Meteoritical Society’s Nier Prize in 2010, the NASA Goddard Internal Research and Development Innovator of the Year Award in 2007, and the NASA Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Science in 2009 and 2014. In 2024, Dr. Glavin was elected to be a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society. His research discoveries have been featured on National Public Radio, PBS/NOVA, the Discovery Channel, and in several books including Marc Kaufman’s "First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth" and "Mars Up Close."