Dr. Moustafa

T. (Mous) Chahine

Dr. Moustafa T. (Mous) Chahine, whose long and distinguished career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory included 17 years as chief scientist and earned him many honors from international scientific organizations, died on March 23.

Born Jan. 1, 1935, in Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Chahine came to the United States to attend the University of Washington where he earned his B.S. in 1956. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1960 from the University of California at Berkeley, he joined the staff of JPL, where he served as founding head of the Laboratory’s division of Earth and Science Sciences and as JPL’s chief scientist from 1984 to 2001.

Dr. Chahine’s primary interests were in remote sensing of planetary atmospheres and surfaces and in climate change processes. Among his accomplishments was development of a multispectral method using infrared and microwave observations to enable infrared remote sensing through clouds. These methods were applied to the remote sensing of Earth, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Most recently he was science team leader for NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument, which was launched onboard the Aqua satellite in 2002.

He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the International Academy of Astronautics. He was also a Fellow in the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union and the American and British Meteorological Societies. He received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, Outstanding Leadership, and Exceptional Achievement Medals. He was also a recipient of the William T. Pecora Award from NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Jule G. Charney Award of the American Meteorological Society, the Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the William Nordberg Medal from the International Council for Science’s Committee on Space Research.

Dr. Chahine is survived by his wife Marina, of La Cañada Flintridge, a teacher at La Cañada High School; son Tony of La Crescenta; son Steve of La Cañada Flintridge; brother Najib of Palos Verdes, Calif.; sister Salma of Beirut, Lebanon; and
sister Haifa of Oxford, England.

  Dr. Moustafa, obituary