Chip is well known for his studies on the Moon’s history and leads the NASA-funded CASA Moon initiative here in New Mexico which over the next five years will study the lunar crust through lunar sample analysis. He is the Originator and Promoter of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program and co-led the ANGSA team of scientists and engineers to open up Apollo mission samples that were stored away for 50 years and used new technology to examine them. The ANGSA initiative was one of NASA’s first steps to prepare to return humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program. Currently a Senior Research Scientist in the UNM Institute of Meteoritics, Dr. Shearer is also a Research Professor in the UNM Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. He is one of the co-leads for the University of New Mexico Sustainable Space Research Grand Challenge. In 2024 he received the Geological Society of America Gilbert award for outstanding contributions to planetary science.
Dr. Shearer earned a B.A. in Geology from Middlebury College, a M.S. in Geology from the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in Geology from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.