University of Central Florida

After a two-year postdoctoral appointment at the University of Maryland, Dr. Campins spent nearly five years at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson. In 1989, he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Florida, were he attained the rank of Professor in 1997. While at the University of Florida, Dr. Campins was Director of the Florida Space Grant Consortium from 1994 to 1998. From 1998 to 2002, Dr. Campins worked as Program Officer at the Research Corporation and as adjunct faculty at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson. In August 2002, Dr. Campins joined the UCF faculty as Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and head of the Planetary and Space Science Group.

Dr. Campins. research area is astronomy. He studies comets, asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system using a variety of ground based, airborne and space based telescopes. This research is funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation. One of his current interests is the role that comets may have played in the origin of water and organic molecules on Earth and Mars.