| Carle M. Pieters | |
| Education: | B.A. (1966) in Math Education; B.S. (1971), M.S. (1972), and Ph.D. (1977) in Planetary Science |
| Alma Mater: | Antioch College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Fields: | Planetary science |
| Workplaces: | |
| Thesis Title: | Characterization and distribution of lunar mare basalt types using remote sensing techniques |
| Thesis Url: | https://www.proquest.com/docview/302871743/ |
| Thesis Year: | 1977 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Thomas B. McCord |
| Doctoral Students: | |
Carle McGetchin Pieters (born 1943) is an American planetary scientist. Pieters has published more than 150 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and was co-author of the book Remote Geochemical Analyses: Elemental and Mineralogical Composition along with Peter Englert. Her general research efforts include planetary exploration and evolution of planetary surfaces with an emphasis on remote compositional analyses.[1]
Pieters earned her B.A. from Antioch College in 1966 in math education. After teaching high school math for one year in Massachusetts, she spent two years teaching science as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia. Upon her return to the US, she received her B.S. (1971), M.S. (1972) and Ph.D. (1977) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Planetary Science.[2] Pieters spent three years at NASA Johnson Space Center before becoming a professor at Brown University in 1980 and has remained there ever since. She is the Principal Investigator for the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an imaging spectrometer (0.4-3.0 μm) designed to characterize and map the mineralogy of the Moon at high resolution, an instrument that was sent to the Moon on the Indian Chandraayan-1 spacecraft. She is also a co-investigator on NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Additionally, she is a sitting member of the NASA Advisory Council's Planetary Protection Subcommittee and a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union.[3]