Organizers: Compton Tucker, Forrest Hall, Anoop Mehta

Piers Sellers came to NASA/Goddard as a postdoctoral fellow in 1982 and became a civil servant in 1985. His research linked the land surface to the atmosphere, incorporated this coupling into numerical simulation general circulation models of the atmosphere, that enabled a dynamic land surface in coupled atmosphere-ocean cryosphere-land surface numerical simulation models for weather prediction and climate simulations. He conceived and directed the FIFE and Boreas integrated field programs, further elaborating land surface-atmosphere interactions. Following a life-long ambition to be an astronaut, he joined the astronaut corps in 1995 and flew on the STS-112, STS-121, and STS-132 missions to the International Space Station. His space walks exceeded 40 hours and his time on-orbit made Piers a more committed Earth Scientist. After the conclusion of NASA's Shuttle program in 2011, Piers returned to NASA/Goddard to be the Director of Earth Science. He was the Earth Science champion until the week of his death in December 2016.

Our tribute colloquium to Piers will start with a musical composition composed in memory of Piers by Bruce Adolphe entitled " I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is" and performed by Kady Evanyshyn, mezzo-soprano and Sophie Shao, cello, with recorded sounds from space. This will be followed by six short reflections of Piers' scientific genius by scientists who worked with Piers, his space exploration exploits by a fellow NASA astronaut, and his family life by Guy Sellers.
 
Participants:
Pamela Melroy—Piers in Space—40 space-walking hours and more!
Jagadish Shukla—Piers early work on land surface-atmosphere interactions
Forest Hall—Piers’ direction of NASA’s FIFE and BOREAS field experiments
David Randall—Piers and the greening of general circulation models
Joe Berry—Piers and Photosynthesis
Guy Sellers—family life as only a brother can relate

About Some of the Participants:

Canadian mezzo-soprano Kady Evanyshyn has been hailed by the New York Classical Review for her “lovely, dramatic voice”, and by Musical America for her "delectable" musical interpretations. She is currently in the second year of her master's degree, studying with Edith Wiens. Ms. Evanyshyn earned her bachelor’s degree from Juilliard, where she was granted the John Erskine prize. She is supported by the Manitoba Arts Council.  

Cellist Sophie Shao received an Avery Fisher Career Grant at age 19, was a major prizewinner at the Rostropovich Competition, and a laureate of the XII Tchaikovsky Competition. Ms. Shao plays on an Honore Derazey cello previously owned by Pablo Casals and is a former member of Chamber Music Society Two. She is on the faculty of University of Connecticut Storrs and Rutgers University.

Composer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which has been broadcast weekly on Performance Today since 2002 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works based on science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including The Mind’s Ear. He contributed the chapter on music to the forthcoming book Secrets of Creativity, an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. Mr. Adolphe is also the artistic director of Off the Hook Arts Festival in Colorado, where in the summer of 2018 the focus was on climate and environmental science, with special events honoring Piers Sellers.

Astronaut Pamela Melroy, a retired Air Force Colonel, piloted STS-92 and STS-112 & commanded STS-120. She has degrees in Earth science, physics, and planetary science and has logged >5,000 hours in >50 aircraft.
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