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Who's Who

Learn about the radio personalities you hear each week on Planetary Radio.

Mat Kaplan (Host)

Mat Kaplan knows how fortunate he is to be the host and producer of Planetary Radio. He was just 17 when he got his first job in broadcasting. It wasn’t until Planetary Radio that he was able to combine his love of space exploration with the fun and excitement of being on the air. A Planetary Society staff member for nearly five years, Mat is also who we look to when an event calls for audiovisual support or a live webcast. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife and two teenage daughters and also works as a technology and media manager for a local university. His extensive background in journalism has ranged from public radio reporter covering the political conventions to movie reviewer for an international magazine. One or two people may even remember him as a correspondent for a couple of pioneering national TV series about computers.

Bruce Betts (What's Up?)

Bruce Betts, Director of Projects for The Planetary Society, is a planetary scientist whose research has focused on infrared studies of planetary surfaces, including Mars and the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. These have involved telescopic, spacecraft and laboratory-based studies, mostly carried out with the Planetary Science Institute. Bruce has both a Bachelor and Master's degree from Stanford and received his Ph.D. from Caltech. He spent three years at NASA headquarters managing planetary instrument development programs to design spacecraft science instruments. He also acted as program scientist on planned NASA planetary missions, including Mars airplanes and landers. At the Planetary Society, he oversees projects that excite and involve the public in space exploration, such as the Mars Microphone, the Red Rover Goes to Mars project on the Mars Exploration Rovers, and a number of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) projects. He is also a frequent contributor to the Society's publications, including the website and The Planetary Report, and hosts the weekly "What's Up?" feature on Planetary Radio.

Emily Lakdawalla (Questions and Answers)

Emily Lakdawalla, Science and Technology Coordinator for The Planetary Society, recieved a Bachelor's degree in geology from Amherst College and then taught science to fifth- and sixth-grade children in Chicago. A class project simulating a space mission made her wonder whether she could study geology on other planets. So she went to Brown University to do just that, where she studied the geologic history of Venus and Mars using images and data from orbiting spacecraft, and received a Master's degree for her trouble. Emily came to The Planetary Society in 2001, where she works for Bruce on the Society's public involvement projects. Among other things, she has trained and coached the Student Astronauts who worked on the Mars Exploration Rover mission; tested out a prototype Mars Airplane at the Houghton Mars Project on Devon Island; and developed and built new LEGO rovers for the Mars Station project. She frequently reports about space mission and planetary science news on planetary.org, develops informational sections of the website such as Exploring Mars and the Cassini-Huygens site, and is an occasional contributor to the Society's bimonthly magazine, The Planetary Report.