Michael Freilich (oceanographer)

In January 2020, NASA announced that the Sentinel-6A Oceanography mission was being renamed the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich in his honor. Freilich played a key role in establishing the international partnership behind this mission. Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), paid tribute to him as follows:

Michael Freilich died at home of pancreatic cancer on the 5th of August 2020. In addition to his brother, he is survived by wife Shoshannah; daughter Sarah; son Daniel; mother Paula; a sister; a granddaughter; and other relatives.

Freilich was recruited by NASA in November 2006 to become director of the NASA Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate. In this position he was responsible for leadership and management of all aspects of NASA's Earth Science Division, including Flight (satellite and airborne), Research and Analysis, Applied Sciences, and Earth Science Technology Office elements.

Freilich served on the National Research Council’s Ocean Studies and Space Studies Boards, and he chaired the NRC Committee on Earth Studies (2001-2005). He was Vice-Chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, was Chair of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites(CEOS) Strategic Implementation Team (2011-2013), and was the NASA CEOS Principal. Among his many awards, Freilich received the JPL Director’s Research Achievement Award (1988), the NASA Public Service Medal (1999), and the AMS Verner Suomi Award (2004). He was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2004, and in 2008 he delivered the NRC/Smithsonian Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture. In He received the 2018 NASA Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2018 NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and the 2018 Distinguished Presidential Rank Award.

Freilich joined the Marine Sciences Research Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook as an assistant professor in 1982. He subsequently moved to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology in 1983. At JPL, Freilich was the remote sensing lead scientist for Scatterometry and led NASA's NSCAT and SeaWinds/ADEOS II space-borne scatterometer instrument development activities, as project scientist (NSCAT) and principal investigator (SeaWinds/ADEOS II). He served as the U.S. Scatterometer coordinating investigator for the European Space Agency ERS-1 mission. In 1992 he moved to Oregon State University where he served as a professor and associate dean in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences.

Michael Freilich was born to Arthur and Paula Freilich in Kensington, Maryland. He earned his undergraduate degree in physics and chemistry from Haverford College in 1975 and his doctorate in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California at San Diego) in 1982.

Michael H. Freilich (January 14, 1954 – August 5, 2020) was an American oceanographer who served as director of the NASA Earth Science division from 2006–2019.