As an undergrad I went to UBC in Vancouver, Canada, and majored in Astronomy and Geophysics. For grad school I went to Caltech and got a MS and PhD in Planetary Science, with Prof. Yuk Yung as my thesis advisor. My thesis was about photochemistry and radiative transfer in Jupiter's atmosphere. I finished there in 1983, and spent two years as a post-doc at York University near Toronto, Canada, three years at CU-LASP in Boulder, Colorado, and six years at SSL-UCB in Berkeley, California. I have been at SwRI in San Antonio for the last 9 years now. I mainly work on simulating the scattering of light at UV and shorter wavelengths, and in understanding auroral and airglow emissions in planetary atmospheres.

Dr. Gladstone answers some questions for us:

The Pluto Portal: What interests you about the exploration of Pluto?
Dr. Gladstone: I'm interested in Pluto's atmosphere, as it may be the only one in the solar system that is escaping from the planet in a sort of wind. This makes Pluto somewhat like a comet, but it's also somewhat like Mars, in that the major component of its atmosphere can freeze out onto the surface (for ultra-cold Pluto this is nitrogen, for Mars it is carbon dioxide).

The Pluto Portal: What advice would you give to someone interested in a career in space science?
Dr. Gladstone: In high school, take all the math and science courses you can handle, and read up on current events in popular astronomy magazines or on the www. It's certainly an exciting time to be in the space sciences, as there are so many new missions and discoveries happening lately.

The Pluto Portal: What do you think is the most interesting discovery in space has been, why?
Dr. Gladstone: A few years ago I would have said bacteria on Mars, but that is now in doubt. There are so many great discoveries to choose among, from cosmology (e.g., that the universe began in a big bang, that normal matter may be only 1/10 of the total), to the solar system (e.g., the crashing of the SL-9 comet into Jupiter, that Venus has clouds of sulfuric acid and a surface temperature that would melt lead), so it's very hard to choose. I guess so much has been learned in my lifetime that the only thing I really, really still want to happen is for the SETI people to make "contact."