About Colin Pillinger
Colin Trevor Pillinger, (; 9 May 1943 – 7 May 2014) was an English planetary scientist. He was a founding member of the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute at The Open University in Milton Keynes; he was also the principal investigator for the British Beagle 2 Mars lander project, and worked on a group of Martian meteorites. == Education and early life == Pillinger was born on 9 May 1943 in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, just outside Bristol. His father, Alfred, a manual worker for the Gas Board, and his mother, Florence (née Honour), also had a daughter, Doreen (the local historian D.P. Lindegaard), six years Colin's senior. He attended Kingswood Grammar School, and later graduated with a BSc degree and a PhD degree in chemistry from University College of Swansea (now Swansea University). He said of himself, "I was a disaster as a science student". == Career and research == After graduating from university, Pillinger became a senior research associate in the Department of Earth Science at the University of Cambridge, and then a senior research fellow at The Open University (1984–1990). He became a professor in interplanetary science at The Open University in 1991. Pillinger's first job was working for NASA. He was involved in the Apollo space programme and ESA's Rosetta mission, and analysed the lunar samples brought back by Apollo 11. Between 1996 and 2000, Pillinger was made Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, a position once held by Sir Christopher Wren.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.