Hiroyuki Sato

Hiroyuki Sato was born in the northeast coast of the Japanese main island in an area with countryside and broad rice fields. When he was in junior high school, one of his friends brought a big amethyst (a purple colored natural crystal) to school, which was found in the nearby river from his town. Hiroyuki went to the same river and tried to find similar crystals with his friend, but even after a whole day effort of hammering the stones under the water, he couldn't find any. This experience is what lead him into being interested in geology and natural minerals!

Hiroyuki studied geology and geophysics at the University of Tokyo. While in school he hiked around mountains in the back-country with a badly-scratched Estwing hammer and LaCoste-Romberg gravimeter on his back. After getting the knowledge of local geology and general framework of Earth science at that time, he was interested in discovering the almost unknown world on a different planet. He started to work in astro-geology in graduate school. Hiroyuki received his M.S. in 2005 and Ph.D. in 2008 with the works related to the Chaotic Terrains and landslides in Valles Marineris on Mars.

After obtaining his PhD Hiroyuki spent one year as a Post Doc at Midi-Pyrenees Observatory in France. Hiroyuki came to LROC in January 2010. Currently he is in charge of he image calibrations of the LROC WAC (wide angle camera).