Dr. Mike Zolensky is a space scientist responsible for curation of cosmic dust at JSC and is responsible for collection, handling and distribution of samples collected under the stratospheric dust collection program, as well as samples collected from spacecrafts such as LDEF and Solar Max. He received his B.S. from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 1977 and his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1983. He has extensive experience in electron microscopy and general analysis of small meteoritic samples. He is the chairman of the Cosmic Dust Committee and group chief of the Lunar and Planetary Geosciences Review Panel. He is an associate editor for the Proceedings of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. He has received a NASA Outstanding Performance Award and Group Achievement Award for LDEF Meteoroid and Debris Investigation.