Kevin Hand

Kevin Hand is an astrobiologist and planetary scientist at JPL.^[1][2] He is also the founder of Cosmos Education^[1][2] and was its president until 2007.^[3] He was working at NASA Ames when he was inspired to form Cosmos Education in 1999 after getting a grant from the Earth and Space Foundation to tour African schools to talk about how education relates to space research.^[4][5]

Kevin Hand
Kevin Hand
Nationality	American
Scientific career
Fields	Astrobiology Planetary science
Thesis	On the physics and chemistry of the ice shell and sub-surface ocean of Europa (2007)
Doctoral advisor	Christopher Chyba

Education and career

Hand studied psychology and physics as an undergraduate at Dartmouth.^[6] He earned a master's degree at Stanford University in mechanical engineering while also working as a public policy research associate at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).^[6][7] He chose the question of whether Europa's putative ocean could harbor life as his Geological & Environmental Sciences PhD dissertation topic, under the direction of Christopher Chyba,^[7] earning the doctorate in 2007.^[6]

While a PhD student, he was chosen by James Cameron to take marine biology samples from hydrothermal vents in subsea expeditions to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and East Pacific Rise.^[7] He was a featured scientist in Cameron's 2005 IMAX documentary, Aliens of the Deep.^[8]

At a 2014 NASA panel discussion, Hand predicted that extraterrestrial life would be found within 20 years.^[9][10]

Hand published the book Alien Oceans in 2020.^[11]

Selected publications

• Hand, Kevin (May 12, 2005). "Cosmos Education: Engaging, Empowering, Inspiring". Cyberspeak. USA Today. Retrieved 2011-08-11.
• Kevin Hand (22 January 2009). "Is there life on Europa?". Nature. 457 (7228): 384–385. Bibcode:2009Natur.457..384H. doi:10.1038/457384a., a review of Richard Greenberg, José joão (2008). Unmasking Europa: The Search for Horses on Jupiter's Ocean plake. Praxis/Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-47936-1.

Bibliography

• Alien Oceans (2020)