Mike is the Associate Curator for Interplanetary Dust and hardware returned from space, Co-investigator of the STARDUST Discovery Mission, and a member of the science team of the MUSES-C asteroid sample return mission.

Mike has led or participated in successful meteorite recovery expeditions in Antarctica, Chile, Namibia, and the US. He has worked on the development of techniques for the characterization of meteoroid and space debris impact features on spacecraft. He led the effort to characterize the impact record of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). He works now on development of new techniques for the analysis of nanogram-sized extraterrestrial samples, especially as applied to the early formation of solids in the solar nebula and the detailed characterization of the chemical weathering record of asteroids. Mike is also leading efforts to locate and characterize aqueous fluid inclusions in meteorites, the first direct samples of water found off the Earth.

Mike serves on the Cosmic Dust Working Group and as a member of NASA’s Solar System Exploration Subcommittee. He is a fellow of the Meteoritical Society and the Mineralogical Society of America, and has received NASA’s Group Achievement Awards for leading the LDEF Meteoroid and Debris Investigation Team, and development of the Stardust Discovery Mission, and the National Science Foundation Antarctic Service Medal. He has more than 400 publications, and is the namesake of minor planet 6030/Zolensky.