Bill Farrand, PhD

Dr. William (Bill) Farrand is a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He has a B.A. in Geology from Franklin & Marshall College and a M.S. and Ph.D. in the Geosciences from the University of Arizona. He has worked extensively in terrestrial remote sensing as well as in the remote sensing of Mars and of the Moon. In the terrestrial remote sensing field, Dr. Farrand has worked extensively with data from airborne hyperspectral remote sensing systems for both commercial and government programs. Dr. Farrand has been a Participating Scientist on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission since 2002. Dr. Farrand has worked extensively with multispectral Pancam data from both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers looking at the multispectral reflectance of rocks viewed by the rovers at the Columbia Hills of Gusev crater and on the plains and craters of Meridiani Planum. He is also involved in several other projects examining terrestrial analogues of Martian surface materials, working with orbital remote sensing data of Mars, and examining the hyperspectral reflectance data over mining sites in western India. Bill has given numerous public talks on Mars and geology topics and is an active member of a Toastmasters public speaking club. In his free time, Bill is an avid rock climber and also enjoys skiing, hiking, taking his dogs on walks, and pursuing useless TV and movie trivia.