Gordon Osinski

Dr. Gordon “Oz” Osinski is a Professor and the NSERC/MDA/CSA/CEMI Industrial Research Chair in Earth and Space Exploration in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario (Western), Canada. He holds a PhD from the University of New Brunswick (2004) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of St. Andrews (1999), Scotland, both in Geology. Dr. Osinski is also the Director of the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western and the Director of the Canadian Lunar Research Network and the founder and Chair of the Planetary Sciences Division of the Geological Association of Canada. He is a member of several advisory committees, including the Space Advisory Board of the Government of Canada. Dr. Osinski’s research interests are diverse and interdisciplinary in nature and focuses on understanding the evolution of the surface of the Earth and other planetary bodies as well as the origin and evolution of life. His main focus is on understanding impact cratering as a planetary geological process, on the Earth, Moon and Mars. He has conducted fieldwork on 5 continents, including Antarctica, Australasia, and Africa, but the Canadian Arctic is where much of his work takes place. In recognition of scientific exploration of the Canadian Arctic he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2014.

Dr. Osinski has published over 175 papers in peer-reviewed journals and special papers and has given over 110 conference presentations. He has received numerous awards for this research, including the Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society (2009), an international award for young scientists, an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2013), the Young Scientist Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada (2015), and the Florence Bucke Award from Western (2015). In 2018 he was awarded the prestigious W. W. Hutchison Medal of the Geological Association of Canada and was named a Faculty Scholar at Western. Dr. Osinski is also involved in several past and ongoing exploration-related activities. Most recently, he is the PI for the Canadian Space Agency Concept Study for an “Integrated Vision System for Characterization of the Lunar surface”. He is also a Co-I on the PanCam instrument on the 2020 ExoMars mission to Mars. Dr. Osinski is also involved in providing geology training to Canadian and US astronauts. He is also passionate about outreach and science communication and leads several initiatives, including Space Matters and Impact Earth.