Dr. Keith Noll
Principal Investigator, Hubble Heritage Project

Keith actually has three jobs at Hubble: he began and now heads up the Heritage Project , he's an instrument scientist, and he's an astronomer working on his own research.

Keith consults with colleagues during a Heritage project meeting.

Keith knew he would be an astronomer from the time he was a very young boy, and his mom handed him a book about the sky to keep him busy while he waited for her to finish a class. He notes that he was born on the day President Dwight Eisenhower signed the executive order that created NASA.

In college, Keith had pictures of Voyager -- the first robotic craft sent out to explore space -- on his dorm room walls. He says what keeps him going in astronomy is when he makes a discovery, when he finds that something new that he's been looking for. He was prompted to start the Heritage Project when he realized how people respond to Hubble's pictures. "When these images come out," he says, "they speak to everybody."